The neural substrate of the plastic change in tactile stimulation.

• Project/Area Number: 21730603
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Experimental psychology
• Research Institution: University of Fukui
• Principal Investigator: SAITO Daisuke University of Fukui, 高エネルギー医学研究センター, 特命講師 (30390701)
• Project Period (FY): 2009 – 2010
• Project Status: Completed (Fiscal Year 2010)
• Budget Amount: ¥3,770,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,900,000、Indirect Cost: ¥870,000); Fiscal Year 2010: ¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥300,000); Fiscal Year 2009: ¥2,470,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,900,000、Indirect Cost: ¥570,000)
• Keywords: 感覚・知覚 / 脳機能イメージング / 脳機能画像 / MRI / 可塑性

Research Abstract

We examined an fMRI study to clarify the plastic change of neural substrate in long term training. When participants performed tactile discrimination of experimental stimuli, the V1 were activated in the well-trained subjects. In the control (stimuli naive) subjects, the V1 was not activated. Now we are analyzing the obtained data to reveal the mechanisms and difference of neural substrate between experimental groups about the connectivity of several brain regions, the volumes of brain areas and the neuronal fiber tract.