scholarly journals A Case of Dysgraphia after Cerebellar Infarction Where Functional NIRS Guided the Task Aimed at Activating the Hypoperfused Region

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Mutsumi Fujii ◽  
Kazumi Tanigo ◽  
Hirokazu Yamamoto ◽  
Keijyu Kikugawa ◽  
Masayuki Shirakawa ◽  
...  

Background. Linguistic impairment following cerebellar lesions is characterized by a marked cerebellocerebral diaschisis with decreased perfusion in the left cerebral hemisphere. Case. We report on a 60-year-old right-handed French chef who presented with linguistic deficits following a right cerebellar infarction. Neurolinguistic examinations in the acute phase showed impaired graphomotor planning, especially for kanji (Japanese morphograms). Despite the absence of any structural damage to the supratentorial brain regions, a quantitative 123I-IMP SPECT study revealed a relative hypoperfusion, mainly around the left posterior middle temporal gyrus, considered to be a crossed cerebellar-cerebral diaschisis. We performed functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and observed that a picture card task could increase blood perfusion in the affected area. This task was as follows: once he saw a picture card depicting a dish, the patient had to list the ingredients that make up the dish. For example, he had to name vegetables, meat, and spices upon seeing a “curry” picture card. We added this task to his daily speech-hearing therapy regimen. In the chronic phase, we confirmed symptom amelioration in linguistic performance-paralleled reduction in the level of hypoperfusion on SPECT study. Discussion. This case is the first report of an fNIRS approach used to evaluate evidence-based prospective speech-hearing tasks by observing blood flow to the hypoperfused area of the cerebral cortex surface.

Healthcare ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 412
Author(s):  
Li Cong ◽  
Hideki Miyaguchi ◽  
Chinami Ishizuki

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.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yan He ◽  
Yinying Hu ◽  
Yaxi Yang ◽  
Defeng Li ◽  
Yi Hu

Recent neuroimaging research has suggested that unequal cognitive efforts exist between interpreting from language 1 (L1) to language 2 (L2) compared with interpreting from L2 to L1. However, the neural substrates that underlie this directionality effect are not yet well understood. Whether directionality is modulated by interpreting expertise also remains unknown. In this study, we recruited two groups of Mandarin (L1)/English (L2) bilingual speakers with varying levels of interpreting expertise and asked them to perform interpreting and reading tasks. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was used to collect cortical brain data for participants during each task, using 68 channels that covered the prefrontal cortex and the bilateral perisylvian regions. The interpreting-related neuroimaging data was normalized by using both L1 and L2 reading tasks, to control the function of reading and vocalization respectively. Our findings revealed the directionality effect in both groups, with forward interpreting (from L1 to L2) produced more pronounced brain activity, when normalized for reading. We also found that directionality was modulated by interpreting expertise in both normalizations. For the group with relatively high expertise, the activated brain regions included the right Broca’s area and the left premotor and supplementary motor cortex; whereas for the group with relatively low expertise, the activated brain areas covered the superior temporal gyrus, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), the Broca’s area, and visual area 3 in the right hemisphere. These findings indicated that interpreting expertise modulated brain activation, possibly because of more developed cognitive skills associated with executive functions in experienced interpreters.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurie Bayet ◽  
Katherine L. Perdue ◽  
Hannah F. Behrendt ◽  
John E. Richards ◽  
Alissa Westerlund ◽  
...  

AbstractFacial emotion processing is an important social skill that develops throughout infancy and early childhood. Here we investigate the neural underpinnings of the ability to process facial emotion across changes in facial identity in cross-sectional groups of 5- and 7-month-old infants. We simultaneously measured neural metabolic, behavioral, and autonomic responses to happy, fearful, and angry faces of different female models using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), eye-tracking, and heart rate measures. We observed significant neural activation to these facial emotions in a distributed set of frontal and temporal brain regions, and longer looking to the mouth region of angry faces compared to happy and fearful faces. No differences in looking behavior or neural activations were observed between 5- and 7-month-olds, although several exploratory, age-independent associations between neural activations and looking behavior were noted. Overall, these findings suggest more developmental stability than previously thought in responses to emotional facial expressions of varying identities between 5- and 7-months of age.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hashini Wanniarachchi ◽  
Yan Lang ◽  
Xinlong Wang ◽  
Sridhar Nerur ◽  
Kay-Yut Chen ◽  
...  

AbstractNeuroeconomics with neuroimaging is a novel approach involving economics and neuroscience. The newsvendor problem (NP) is a prevalent economics concept that may be used to map brain activations during NP-evoked risky decision making. In this study, we hypothesized that key brain regions responsible for NP are dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). Twenty-seven human subjects participated in the study using 40 NP trials; the participants were randomly assigned to a group with a low-profit margin (LM) or high-profit margin (HM) treatment. Cerebral hemodynamic responses were recorded simultaneously during the NP experiments from all participants with a 77-channel functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) system. After data preprocessing, general linear model was applied to generate brain activation maps, followed by statistical t-tests. The results showed that: (a) DLPFC and OFC were significantly evoked by NP versus baseline regardless of treatment types; (b) DLPFC and OFC were activated by HM versus baseline; and (c) DLPFC was activated during LM versus baseline. Furthermore, significant deactivation in right DLPFC was shown due to LM with respect to HM. This study affirms that DLPFC and OFC are two key cortical regions when solving NP. In particular, right DLPFC was found to be more deactivated under challenging risk decision making.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. p8
Author(s):  
Michael Oler ◽  
Anthony Johnson ◽  
Anna McCulloh ◽  
Munqith Dagher ◽  
Anita Day ◽  
...  

Sectarian violence continues in Iraq affecting regional and world security. Neuroscience techniques are used to assess the mentalizing process and counter-arguing in response to videos designed to prevent extremist radicalization. Measurement of neural activity in brain Regions of Interest (ROI) assists identification of messages which can promote favorable behavior. Activation of the Medial Prefrontal Cortex (MPFC) is associated with message adoption and behavior change. Public Service Announcements (PSAs) have not been effective in reducing violence in Iraq. This study demonstrates that the four PSAs investigated in this study do not activate the MPFC. The RLPFC is a brain ROI associated with counter-arguing and message resistance. This study demonstrates that reduction in activity in the Right Lateral Prefrontal Cortex (RLPFC) is associated with decreased sectarianism. Engagement was measured and is associated with activity in the frontal pole regions.We introduce Functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) to measure the neural activity of highly sectarian Iraqis in response to these anti-sectarian messages. Neural activity was measured while viewing three PSAs and a fourth unpublished video. All four videos are intended to reduce sectarianism. A novel sectarianism scale is introduced to measure sectarian beliefs before and after the messages. This sectarian scale has high internal consistency as measured by Cronbach’s alpha. Measured activation of brain ROIs are correlated with changes in the sectarian scale. Twelve Sunni and twelve Shi’a Iraqis participated in the study. Subjects were shown the four videos in randomized order, while equipped with a fNIRS neural imaging device. All four videos produced significant engagement. None of the videos reduced sectarianism nor caused brain activation of adoption. This is consistent with the widely held Iraqi public perception that the PSAs are ineffective. Only one video, which was un-published, caused reduced sectarian beliefs. This un-published fourth video was associated with decreased counter-arguing. Counter-arguing is associated with message resistance.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linlin Yu ◽  
Quanshan Long ◽  
Yancheng Tang ◽  
Shouhang Yin ◽  
Zijun Chen ◽  
...  

We investigated if emotion regulation can be improved through self-regulation training on non-emotional brain regions, as well as how to change the brain networks implicated in this process. During the training period, the participants were instructed to up-regulate their right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (rDLPFC) activity according to real-time functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) neurofeedback signals, and there was no emotional element. The results showed that the training significantly increased emotion regulation, resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) within the emotion regulation network (ERN) and frontoparietal network (FPN), and rsFC between the ERN and amygdala; however, training did not influence the rsFC between the FPN and the amygdala. However, self-regulation training on rDLPFC significantly improved emotion regulation and generally increased the rsFCs within the networks; the rsFC between the ERN and amygdala was also selectively increased. The present study also described a safe approach that may improve emotion regulation through self-regulation training on non-emotional brain regions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiang Zhang ◽  
Jingyue Zhang ◽  
Houhua Ren ◽  
Qihong Liu ◽  
Zhengcong Du ◽  
...  

Neuroimaging technologies have improved our understanding of deception and also exhibit their potential in revealing the origins of its neural mechanism. In this study, a quantitative power analysis method that uses the Welch power spectrum estimation of functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) signals was proposed to examine the brain activation difference between the spontaneous deceptive behavior and controlled behavior. The power value produced by the model was applied to quantify the activity energy of brain regions, which can serve as a neuromarker for deception detection. Interestingly, the power analysis results generated from the Welch spectrum estimation method demonstrated that the spontaneous deceptive behavior elicited significantly higher power than that from the controlled behavior in the prefrontal cortex. Meanwhile, the power findings also showed significant difference between the spontaneous deceptive behavior and controlled behavior, indicating that the reward system was only involved in the deception. The proposed power analysis method for processing fNIRS data provides us an additional insight to understand the cognitive mechanism of deception.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tripp Shealy ◽  
John Gero ◽  
Mo Hu ◽  
Julie Milovanovic

Abstract This paper presents the results of studying the brain activations of 30 engineering students when using three different design concept generation techniques: brainstorming, morphological analysis, and TRIZ. Changes in students’ brain activation in the prefrontal cortex were measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. The results are based on the area under the curve analysis of oxygenated hemodynamic response as well as an assessment of functional connectivity using Pearson’s correlation to compare students’ cognitive brain activations using these three different ideation techniques. The results indicate that brainstorming and morphological analysis demand more cognitive activation across the prefrontal cortex (PFC) compared to TRIZ. The highest cognitive activation when brainstorming and using morphological analysis is in the right dorsolateral PFC (DLPFC) and ventrolateral PFC. These regions are associated with divergent thinking and ill-defined problem-solving. TRIZ produces more cognitive activation in the left DLPFC. This region is associated with convergent thinking and making judgments. Morphological analysis and TRIZ also enable greater coordination (i.e., synchronized activation) between brain regions. These findings offer new evidence that structured techniques like TRIZ reduce cognitive activation, change patterns of activation and increase coordination between regions in the brain.


2019 ◽  
Vol 237 (11) ◽  
pp. 2957-2972 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Seidel ◽  
Daniel Carius ◽  
Julia Roediger ◽  
Sebastian Rumpf ◽  
Patrick Ragert

Abstract It is well known that endurance exercise modulates the cardiovascular, pulmonary, and musculoskeletal system. However, knowledge about its effects on brain function and structure is rather sparse. Hence, the present study aimed to investigate exercise-dependent adaptations in neurovascular coupling to different intensity levels in motor-related brain regions. Moreover, expertise effects between trained endurance athletes (EA) and active control participants (ACP) during a cycling test were investigated using multi-distance functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Initially, participants performed an incremental cycling test (ICT) to assess peak values of power output (PPO) and cardiorespiratory parameters such as oxygen consumption volume (VO2max) and heart rate (HRmax). In a second session, participants cycled individual intensity levels of 20, 40, and 60% of PPO while measuring cardiorespiratory responses and neurovascular coupling. Our results revealed exercise-induced decreases of deoxygenated hemoglobin (HHb), indicating an increased activation in motor-related brain areas such as primary motor cortex (M1) and premotor cortex (PMC). However, we could not find any differential effects in brain activation between EA and ACP. Future studies should extend this approach using whole-brain configurations and systemic physiological augmented fNIRS measurements, which seems to be of pivotal interest in studies aiming to assess neural activation in a sports-related context.


Biomedicines ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 337
Author(s):  
Antonio M. Chiarelli ◽  
David Perpetuini ◽  
Pierpaolo Croce ◽  
Chiara Filippini ◽  
Daniela Cardone ◽  
...  

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is associated with modifications in cerebral blood perfusion and autoregulation. Hence, neurovascular coupling (NC) alteration could become a biomarker of the disease. NC might be assessed in clinical settings through multimodal electroencephalography (EEG) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Multimodal EEG-fNIRS was recorded at rest in an ambulatory setting to assess NC and to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of the methodology to AD. Global NC was evaluated with a general linear model (GLM) framework by regressing whole-head EEG power envelopes in three frequency bands (theta, alpha and beta) with average fNIRS oxy- and deoxy-hemoglobin concentration changes in the frontal and prefrontal cortices. NC was lower in AD compared to healthy controls (HC) with significant differences in the linkage of theta and alpha bands with oxy- and deoxy-hemoglobin, respectively (p = 0.028 and p = 0.020). Importantly, standalone EEG and fNIRS metrics did not highlight differences between AD and HC. Furthermore, a multivariate data-driven analysis of NC between the three frequency bands and the two hemoglobin species delivered a cross-validated classification performance of AD and HC with an Area Under the Curve, AUC = 0.905 (p = 2.17 × 10−5). The findings demonstrate that EEG-fNIRS may indeed represent a powerful ecological tool for clinical evaluation of NC and early identification of AD.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document