Neuronal dynamics in sensorimotor cortices causing generation and dysfunction of the sense of agency

2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K14487
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 10040:Experimental psychology-related
• Research Institution: Iwate Medical University (2021); Kindai University (2019-2020)
• Principal Investigator: Mochizuki Kei 岩手医科大学, 医学部, 講師 (50779931)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: 神経科学

Outline of Final Research Achievements

When we voluntarily move, we naturally feel that the movement was executed by our own will. This subjective feeling is called the sense of agency, and is necessary for our everyday's behavior. However, this kind of subjective feeling is difficult to measure in experimental animals, and thus animal experiments on the neurophysiological mechanism of the sense of agency were limited. In the current study, we improved the technique to measure the strength of human sense of agency to suit experimental animals, and performed an actual experiment in Japanese monkeys, pointing a possible future direction of animal experiments on neural mechanism of generation and dysfunction of the sense of agency.

Free Research Field

神経科学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

ヒトにおいて運動主体感を定量する方法は、運動の自己帰属性について直接的に内観報告を得る手法や、心理物理実験により間接的に運動主体感の程度を推定する手法などがあるが、いずれも言語的な報告が必要となり、動物実験に応用するのは困難だった。本研究では、こうした先行研究の行動課題を実験動物向けに変更することで、動物においても運動主体感の程度を推定する方法を提唱した点に大きな学術的意義がある。