Understanding the columnar organization in human primary somatosensory cortex using high-resolution fMRI

2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 18K15339
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 51010:Basic brain sciences-related
• Research Institution: Okayama University (2018, 2021); National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (2019-2020)
• Principal Investigator: Yu Yinghua 岡山大学, ヘルスシステム統合科学学域, 特任助教 (60812039)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-04-01 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: コラム構造 / 体性感覚皮質 / 超高磁場fMRI

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Previous animal studies revealed that area 3b of the primary somatosensory cortex receives cutaneous input from slow-adapting (SA) and rapidly adapting (RA) cutaneous receptors in a columnar manner. However, there have been no direct observations of columnar origination in the human area 3b. The use of sub-millimeter BOLD and blood-volume-sensitive (VASO) fMRI at 7T, which is specific and sensitive enough to reveal functional laminar activity, allowed us to find both SA and RA selective stimulation evoked activity in the middle layers of the 3b. On the other hand, RA selective stimulation activates the superficial and deep layers as well. We regard these observations as an essential step toward understanding the columnar organization of the human somatosensory system.

Free Research Field

認知脳科学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

近年，7T-fMRIを用いたヒト体性感覚皮質の体部位再現研究が増え，3b野における各手指に対応する皮質領域の空間配置の構造が明らかにされている。本研究では，独自開発の7T-fMRI撮像手法の高空間解像度を活かしてヒトの3b野におけるSAとRA受容野のコラム活動の計測に成功し，従来研究では計測できなかったヒトの3b野のコラム構造の検討を実現した。この成果は，3b野における触覚情報の初期処理モデルの構築に活用でき，触覚情報処理の脳内神経基盤解明に新しい視点を提示できると期待されている。