Prefrontal Cortex and Supplementary Motor Area Activation During Robot-Assisted Weight-Supported Over-Ground Walking in Young Neurological Patients: A Pilot fNIRS Study

Introduction: Rehabilitation therapy devices are designed for practicing intensively task-specific exercises inducing long-term neuroplastic changes underlying improved functional outcome. The Andago enables over-ground walking with bodyweight support requiring relatively high cognitive demands. In this study, we investigated whether we could identify children and adolescents with neurological gait impairments who show increased hemodynamic responses of the supplementary motor area (SMA) or prefrontal cortex (PFC) measured with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) when walking in Andago compared to walking on a treadmill. We further assessed the practicability and acceptability of fNIRS.Methods: Thirteen participants (two girls, 11 boys, age 8.0–15.7 years) with neurological impairments walked in the Andago and on a treadmill under comparable conditions. We measured hemodynamic responses over SMA and PFC during 10 walks (each lasting 20 s.) per condition and analyzed the data according to the latest recommendations. In addition, we listed technical issues, stopped the time needed to don fNIRS, and used a questionnaire to assess acceptability.Results: Hemodynamic responses varied largely between participants. Participants with a typical hemodynamic response (i.e., increased oxygenated hemoglobin concentration) showed large cortical activations during walking in Andago compared to treadmill walking (large effect sizes, i.e., for SMA: r = 0.91, n = 4; for PFC: r = 0.62, n = 3). Other participants showed atypical (SMA: n = 2; PFC: n = 4) or inconclusive hemodynamic responses (SMA: n = 5; PFC: n = 4). The median time for donning fNIRS was 28 min. The questionnaire indicated high acceptance of fNIRS, despite that single participants reported painful sensations.Discussion: Repetitive increased activation of cortical areas like the SMA and PFC might result in long-term neuroplastic changes underlying improved functional outcome. This cross-sectional pilot study provides first numbers on hemodynamic responses in SMA and PFC during walking in Andago in children with neurological impairments, reveals that only a small proportion of the participants shows typical hemodynamic responses, and reports that fNIRS requires considerable time for donning. This information is needed when designing future longitudinal studies to investigate whether increased brain activation of SMA and PFC during walking in Andago could serve as a biomarker to identify potential therapy responders among children and adolescents undergoing neurorehabilitation.

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Functional near-infrared spectroscopy to investigate hemodynamic responses to deception in the prefrontal cortex

Brain Research ◽

10.1016/j.brainres.2009.09.085 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 1303 ◽

pp. 120-130 ◽

Cited By ~ 29

Author(s):

Fenghua Tian ◽

Vikrant Sharma ◽

F. Andrew Kozel ◽

Hanli Liu

Keyword(s):

Prefrontal Cortex ◽

Infrared Spectroscopy ◽

Near Infrared Spectroscopy ◽

Near Infrared ◽

Hemodynamic Responses ◽

Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy

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Hemodynamic Response of the Supplementary Motor Area during Locomotor Tasks with Upright versus Horizontal Postures in Humans

Neural Plasticity ◽

10.1155/2016/6168245 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 2016 ◽

pp. 1-8

Author(s):

Arito Yozu ◽

Shigeru Obayashi ◽

Katsumi Nakajima ◽

Yukihiro Hara

Keyword(s):

Infrared Spectroscopy ◽

Near Infrared ◽

Supplementary Motor Area ◽

Human Locomotion ◽

Postural Instability ◽

Motor Area ◽

Upright Posture ◽

Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy ◽

Time Courses ◽

Lofstrand Crutches

To understand cortical mechanisms related to truncal posture control during human locomotion, we investigated hemodynamic responses in the supplementary motor area (SMA) with quadrupedal and bipedal gaits using functional near-infrared spectroscopy in 10 healthy adults. The subjects performed three locomotor tasks where the degree of postural instability varied biomechanically, namely, hand-knee quadrupedal crawling (HKQuad task), upright quadrupedalism using bilateral Lofstrand crutches (UpQuad task), and typical upright bipedalism (UpBi task), on a treadmill. We measured the concentration of oxygenated hemoglobin (oxy-Hb) during the tasks. The oxy-Hb significantly decreased in the SMA during the HKQuad task, whereas it increased during the UpQuad task. No significant responses were observed during the UpBi task. Based on the degree of oxy-Hb responses, we ranked these locomotor tasks as UpQuad > UpBi > HKQuad. The order of the different tasks did not correspond with postural instability of the tasks. However, qualitative inspection of oxy-Hb time courses showed that oxy-Hb waveform patterns differed between upright posture tasks (peak-plateau-trough pattern for the UpQuad and UpBi tasks) and horizontal posture task (downhill pattern for the HKQuad task). Thus, the SMA may contribute to the control of truncal posture accompanying locomotor movements in humans.

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Athlete-Specific Neural Strategies under Pressure: A fNIRS Pilot Study

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph17228464 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 17 (22) ◽

pp. 8464

Author(s):

Inchon Park ◽

Youngsook Kim ◽

Seung Kyum Kim

Keyword(s):

Prefrontal Cortex ◽

Pilot Study ◽

Near Infrared ◽

Hemodynamic Response ◽

Visual Simulation ◽

Hemodynamic Responses ◽

Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy ◽

Response Level ◽

Stress Levels ◽

Simulation Task

(1) Background: Stress and pressure during competition and training impair athletes’ performance in sports. However, the influence of mental stress on the prefrontal cortex (PFC) functioning in an athlete during the visual simulation task is unknown. The purpose of this pilot study was to investigate hemodynamic responses during the visual-simulation task that induces pressure and stress using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. (2) Methods: Ten archers and ten non-athlete collegiate students performed a visual-simulation task. Participants’ current stress levels were collected using a visual analog scale before and after the task. Average oxygenated hemoglobin (HbO), deoxygenated hemoglobin (HbR), and total hemoglobin (HbT) levels and their variability (standard deviation (SD) HbO, SD HbR, and SD HbT) were computed to compare the neural efficiency between athlete and non-athlete. (3) Results: In general, both groups exhibited increased stress levels after the simulation task, and there was no group difference in overall average hemodynamic response from PFC and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). While the average hemodynamic response level did not differ between groups, variability in hemodynamic responses from the archer group showed a more stable pattern than the non-athlete group. (4) Conclusion: Under this experimental setting, decreasing the variability in hemodynamic responses during the visual simulation, potentially via stabilizing the fluctuation of PFC, was characterized by the stress-related compensatory neural strategy of elite archers.

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The Supplementary Motor Area Responsible for Word Retrieval Decline After Acute Thalamic Stroke Revealed by Coupled SPECT and Near-Infrared Spectroscopy

Brain Sciences ◽

10.3390/brainsci10040247 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (4) ◽

pp. 247

Author(s):

Shigeru Obayashi

Keyword(s):

Infrared Spectroscopy ◽

Near Infrared Spectroscopy ◽

Near Infrared ◽

Supplementary Motor Area ◽

Photon Emission ◽

Word Retrieval ◽

Motor Area ◽

Emission Computed Tomography ◽

Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy ◽

Thalamic Stroke

Damage to the thalamus may affect cognition and language, but the underlying mechanism remains unknown. In particular, it remains a riddle why thalamic aphasia occasionally occurs and then mostly recovers to some degree. To explore the mechanism of the affected cognition and language, we used two neuroimaging techniques—single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), suitable for viewing the affected brain distribution after acute thalamic stroke, and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (f-NIRS), focusing on hemodynamic responses of the supplementary motor area (SMA) responsible for speech production in conjunction with the frontal aslant tract (FAT) pathway. SPECT yielded common perfusion abnormalities not only in the fronto–parieto–cerebellar loop, but also in the SMA, IFG and surrounding language-relevant regions. In NIRS sessions during a phonemic verbal fluency task, we found significant word retrieval decline in acute thalamic patients relative to age-matched healthy volunteers. Further, NIRS showed strong correlation between word retrieval and posterior SMA responses. In addition, follow-up NIRS exhibited increased bilateral SMA responses linked to improving word retrieval ability. The findings suggest that cognitive dysfunction may be related to the fronto–parieto–cerebellar loop, while language dysfunction is attributed to the SMA, IFG and language-related brain areas. SMA may contribute to the recovery of word retrieval difficulty and aphasia after thalamic stroke.

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Making social neuroscience less WEIRD: Using fNIRS to measure neural signatures of persuasive influence in a Middle East participant sample

10.31234/osf.io/3ah8v ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Shannon Burns ◽

Lianne N. Barnes ◽

Ian A. McCulloh ◽

Munqith M. Dagher ◽

Emily B. Falk ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Prefrontal Cortex ◽

Near Infrared ◽

Brain Activity ◽

Health And Safety ◽

Social Neuroscience ◽

Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy ◽

Future Directions ◽

Neuroscience Research ◽

Neuropsychological Functions ◽

Arabic Speaking

The large majority of social neuroscience research uses WEIRD populations – participants from Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic locations. This makes it difficult to claim whether neuropsychological functions are universal or culture specific. In this study, we demonstrate one approach to addressing the imbalance by using portable neuroscience equipment in a study of persuasion conducted in Jordan with an Arabic-speaking sample. Participants were shown persuasive videos on various health and safety topics while their brain activity was measured using functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Self-reported persuasiveness ratings for each video were then recorded. Consistent with previous research conducted with American subjects, this work found that activity in the dorsomedial and ventromedial prefrontal cortex predicted how persuasive participants found the videos and how much they intended to engage in the messages’ endorsed behaviors. Further, activity in the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex was associated with persuasiveness ratings, but only in participants for whom the message was personally relevant. Implications for these results on the understanding of the brain basis of persuasion and on future directions for neuroimaging in diverse populations are discussed.

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Classification of Prefrontal Cortex Activity Based on Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Data upon Olfactory Stimulation

Brain Sciences ◽

10.3390/brainsci11060701 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (6) ◽

pp. 701

Author(s):

Cheng-Hsuan Chen ◽

Kuo-Kai Shyu ◽

Cheng-Kai Lu ◽

Chi-Wen Jao ◽

Po-Lei Lee

Keyword(s):

Prefrontal Cortex ◽

Infrared Spectroscopy ◽

Near Infrared Spectroscopy ◽

Near Infrared ◽

Kernel Functions ◽

Olfactory Stimulation ◽

Support Vector ◽

Hemodynamic Response Function ◽

Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy ◽

Data Set

The sense of smell is one of the most important organs in humans, and olfactory imaging can detect signals in the anterior orbital frontal lobe. This study assessed olfactory stimuli using support vector machines (SVMs) with signals from functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) data obtained from the prefrontal cortex. These data included odor stimuli and air state, which triggered the hemodynamic response function (HRF), determined from variations in oxyhemoglobin (oxyHb) and deoxyhemoglobin (deoxyHb) levels; photoplethysmography (PPG) of two wavelengths (raw optical red and near-infrared data); and the ratios of data from two optical datasets. We adopted three SVM kernel functions (i.e., linear, quadratic, and cubic) to analyze signals and compare their performance with the HRF and PPG signals. The results revealed that oxyHb yielded the most efficient single-signal data with a quadratic kernel function, and a combination of HRF and PPG signals yielded the most efficient multi-signal data with the cubic function. Our results revealed superior SVM analysis of HRFs for classifying odor and air status using fNIRS data during olfaction in humans. Furthermore, the olfactory stimulation can be accurately classified by using quadratic and cubic kernel functions in SVM, even for an individual participant data set.

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Reduced left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex activation during verbal fluency tasks is associated with suicidal ideation severity in medication-naïve young adults with major depressive disorder: A functional near-infrared spectroscopy study

Psychiatry Research Neuroimaging ◽

10.1016/j.pscychresns.2021.111288 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 312 ◽

pp. 111288

Author(s):

Yeon Jung Lee ◽

Seo Young Park ◽

Lee Yun Sung ◽

Jung Ho Kim ◽

Jongkwan Choi ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Major Depressive Disorder ◽

Prefrontal Cortex ◽

Infrared Spectroscopy ◽

Suicidal Ideation ◽

Verbal Fluency ◽

Near Infrared ◽

Spectroscopy Study ◽

Major Depressive ◽

Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy ◽

Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex

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Comparison of Activation in the Prefrontal Cortex of Native Speakers of Mandarin by Ability of Japanese as a Second Language Using a Novel Speaking Task

Healthcare ◽

10.3390/healthcare9040412 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 (4) ◽

pp. 412

Author(s):

Li Cong ◽

Hideki Miyaguchi ◽

Chinami Ishizuki

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Prefrontal Cortex ◽

Cognitive Load ◽

Near Infrared ◽

Native Speakers ◽

Brain Activation ◽

Brain Regions ◽

Strong Inhibition ◽

Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy ◽

High Level

Evidence shows that second language (L2) learning affects cognitive function. Here in this work, we compared brain activation in native speakers of Mandarin (L1) who speak Japanese (L2) between and within two groups (high and low L2 ability) to determine the effect of L2 ability in L1 and L2 speaking tasks, and to map brain regions involved in both tasks. The brain activation during task performance was determined using prefrontal cortex blood flow as a proxy, measured by functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). People with low L2 ability showed much more brain activation when speaking L2 than when speaking L1. People with high L2 ability showed high-level brain activation when speaking either L2 or L1. Almost the same high-level brain activation was observed in both ability groups when speaking L2. The high level of activation in people with high L2 ability when speaking either L2 or L1 suggested strong inhibition of the non-spoken language. A wider area of brain activation in people with low compared with high L2 ability when speaking L2 is considered to be attributed to the cognitive load involved in code-switching L1 to L2 with strong inhibition of L1 and the cognitive load involved in using L2.

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