2007 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Neural systems contributing to the controll of bilateral hand movements for manipulation and recognition of an object in primary and secodary somatosensory cortices
| Project/Area Number |
17500205
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Neuroscience in general
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| Research Institution | Tokyo Medical and Dental University |
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Principal Investigator |
TAOKA Miki Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Section of Cognitive Neurobiology, Associate Professor (80236174)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
TANAKA Michio Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Section of Cognitive Neurobiology, Assistant (00057738)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2005 – 2007
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| Keywords | Secondary Somatosensory Cortex / Intraparietal Areas / Bilaterally Actiye Neuron / Single Unit Activity / Finger Movement Control / Tactile Recognition / Macaque Monkey / Muscimol Infection |
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| Research Abstract |
We investigated the neural systems contributing to the control of bilateral hand movements for manipulation of a single object in the primary and secondary somatosensory cortices (SI, SII) using Japanese monkeys.
1. We investigated the neural Connections between the hand regions of SI and SII where bilateral hand neurons have been demonstrated. We found that the rostral and caudal parts of SII were connected with areas 1, 2 and 5 whereas the region between them was connected with area 3b.
2. We trained animals to retrieve an invisible small piece of food on an experimeter's hand with one hand, then passed it to the other hand and ate it We recorded single-unit activity from SII during the task. We found neurons that became active exclusively at the moment when the animal passed food to the other hand. Those neurons seemed to contribute to the bimanual object manipulation.
3. Spike-timing analyses were applied to neural activities during the task. Most of hand-only neurons (responding only to the hand movements) became active when the animal used the contralateral hand but about 95% hand-mouth neurons (responding to both of the hand and mouth movements) became active when animals used either hand. This suggests that integration of information from the hand and mouth and that from both sides of the hand occur simultaneously. Both neurons were recorded mainly from the outer-face of the parietal operculum and neurons in the inner-face rarely became active during the task suggesting the functional subdivision of SII. Long-lasting neural activity covering the entire period task was often found in hand-mouth neurons but not in hand-only neurons. Considering that fewer neurons responded to tactile stimuli such as touching objects, such long-lasting neural activities seem to code the whole feeding behavior using bilateral hands and mouth.
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Research Products
(18 results)
