title: MEG study of long-term cortical reorganization of sensorimotor areas with respect to using chopsticks.
abstract: The movements required to use chopsticks are overlearned and routine in Asians. Most non-Asians, on the other hand, typically have difficulty performing this unfamiliar manual activity, and have to focus their attention on the movements required to use chopsticks adequately. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG) we compared the cortical activation of highly trained Asian chopstick users to the activation of Europeans who only occasionally used chopsticks, while they performed the same tasks with chopsticks or a control task of simple tapping of the same fingers. The data were analyzed using the new method of synthetic aperture magnetometry (SAM). In Europeans there was a significantly higher ratio of spectral power in the higher gamma frequency band (60-80 Hz) over the sensorimotor area compared to the Asian subjects. From these results we conclude that the high gamma band activity in the sensorimotor area may reflect focused attention and functional reorganization of the cortical network with respect to sensorimotor experience.
authors.affiliation: The Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care, University of Toronto, 3560 Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Ryouhei
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ishii
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schulz
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xiang
authors.forename: Masatoshi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Takeda
authors.forename: Kazuhiro
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Shinosaki
authors.forename: Donald T
authors.initials: DT
authors.lastname: Stuss
authors.forename: Christo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pantev
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001208:Asia; D004435:Eating; D005060:Europe; D005385:Fingers; D006801:Humans; D008280:Magnetics; D015225:Magnetoencephalography; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D009048:Motor Skills / Q000502:physiology*; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D013003:Somatosensory Cortex / Q000502:physiology*