28 research outputs found

    Categorical discrimination of human body parts by magnetoencephalography

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    Humans recognize body parts in categories. Previous studies have shown that responses in the fusiform body area (FBA) and extrastriate body area (EBA) are evoked by the perception of the human body, when presented either as whole or as isolated parts. These responses occur approximately 190 ms after body images are visualized. The extent to which body-sensitive responses show specificity for different body part categories remains to be largely clarified. We used a decoding method to quantify neural responses associated with the perception of different categories of body parts. Nine subjects underwent measurements of their brain activities by magnetoencephalography (MEG) while viewing 14 images of feet, hands, mouths, and objects. We decoded categories of the presented images from the MEG signals using a support vector machine (SVM) and calculated their accuracy by 10-fold cross-validation. For each subject, a response that appeared to be a body-sensitive response was observed and the MEG signals corresponding to the three types of body categories were classified based on the signals in the occipitotemporal cortex. The accuracy in decoding body- part categories (with a peak at approximately 48%) was above chance (33.3%) and significantly higher than that for random categories. According to the time course and location, the responses are suggested to be body-sensitive and to include information regarding the body-part category. Finally, this non-invasive method can decode category information of a visual object with high temporal and spatial resolution and this result may have a significant impact in the field of brain-machine interface research

    Non-invasive detection of language-related prefrontal high gamma band activity with beamforming MEG

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    Hashimoto H., Hasegawa Y., Araki T., et al. Non-invasive detection of language-related prefrontal high gamma band activity with beamforming MEG. Scientific Reports 7, 14262 (2017); https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-14452-3.High gamma band (>50 Hz) activity is a key oscillatory phenomenon of brain activation. However, there has not been a non-invasive method established to detect language-related high gamma band activity. We used a 160-channel whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG) system equipped with superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) gradiometers to non-invasively investigate neuromagnetic activities during silent reading and verb generation tasks in 15 healthy participants. Individual data were divided into alpha (8-13 Hz), beta (13-25 Hz), low gamma (25-50 Hz), and high gamma (50-100 Hz) bands and analysed with the beamformer method. The time window was consecutively moved. Group analysis was performed to delineate common areas of brain activation. In the verb generation task, transient power increases in the high gamma band appeared in the left middle frontal gyrus (MFG) at the 550-750 ms post-stimulus window. We set a virtual sensor on the left MFG for time-frequency analysis, and high gamma event-related synchronization (ERS) induced by a verb generation task was demonstrated at 650 ms. In contrast, ERS in the high gamma band was not detected in the silent reading task. Thus, our study successfully non-invasively measured language-related prefrontal high gamma band activity

    自発的ドック受診者群と企業健診受診者群の脳MRIにおけるT2高信号域個数の比較

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    he purpose of this study was to evaluate the difference in T2-elongated spots (T2ES) between self-referred and third party-referred subjects.The brain MRI studies of 814 healthy adults were assessed. The subjects were categorized into two groups. Group A included 312 self-referred subjects ranging in age from 49 to 65 years (mean age, 56.5 years). Group B included 502 third party-referred subjects same ranging in age (mean age, 54.3 years). All subjects were asked to complete an interview sheet dealing with current and past diseases. To compare the two groups, an ‘Age-related Grading System\u27 was created.Grade 4 was defined as including patients who had 10 to 14 more T2ESs than their age minus 49; 20.027771275620f Group B and 13.51111400240f Group A (P<0.05) were classified as Grade 4. Diabetes mellitus was present in 15.016010062550f Group A and 9.615734071165f Group B (P<0.05). Hyperlipidemia was present in 18.015710062563f Group A and 9.015035020146f Group B (P<0.01).Although diabetes mellitus and hyperlipidemia were more common in Group A, these diseases were considered to be well controlled. It would appear that the patients in Group A were more health conscious than those in Group B

    Heritability of brain volume on MRI in middle to advanced age: A twin study of Japanese adults.

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    Brain atrophy is part of the aging process and accelerated by neurodegenerative diseases, so an understanding of the background heritability of brain volume is essential. The purpose of this study was to determine the heritability of brain volume in middle to advanced age East Asian adults, an age group less studied and an ethnicity not previously studied. 3T magnetic resonance images were obtained and volumetric analyses conducted for a total of 74 individuals, 20 monozygotic twin pairs (mean age 61y min 41y max 75y) and 17 dizygotic twin pairs (mean age 64y min 41y max 85y). Total brain volume and a further seven regions were assessed, including lobar volumes, lateral divisions, and separated grey and white matter. Additive genetics and unique environment (AE) models for global brain volumes including total brain (90%), grey matter (91%) and white matter (84%) and many lobar volumes demonstrated high heritability in our study population. Our results present the heritability of brain volume in middle to advanced age as possibly higher in East Asian adults
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