Development of right inferior fronto-parietal network for bodily self-awareness

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K21138
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Basic / Social brain science; Developmental mechanisms and the body works
• Research Institution: Osaka University
• Principal Investigator: Morita Tomoyo 大阪大学, 工学研究科, 特任講師(常勤) (60543402)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 発達 / 脳機能 / 自己 / 右半球

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Focusing on the human right frontal-parietal network, we examined its function and its developmental process by using MRI. In adults, self-body perception with bodily awareness and self-face recognition with self-awareness commonly activated the inferior frontal-parietal regions of the right hemisphere. In addition, when exactly the same experiment was conducted for elementary school children and junior high-school students, we found that these common activities of the right inferior frontal-parietal region were not be observed in elementary school children and emerged around junior high-school students. Furthermore, we obtained data showing that the activity of the right hemisphere was related to personality trait of being aware of the self in junior high-school students. These results suggest that information about physical self would be represented in the right inferior frontal-parietal network, which may be a neural substrate for bodily self-consciousness.

Free Research Field

発達神経科学