title: Multimodal assessment of cortical activation during apple peeling by NIRS and fMRI.
abstract: An intriguing application of neuroimaging is directly measuring actual human brain activities during daily living. To this end, we investigated cortical activation patterns during apple peeling. We first conducted a pilot study to assess the activation pattern of the whole lateral cortical surface during apple peeling by multichannel near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and detected substantial activation in the prefrontal region in addition to expected activations extending over the motor, premotor and supplementary motor areas. We next examined cortical activation during mock apple peeling by simultaneous measurement using multichannel NIRS and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in four subjects. We detected activations extending over the motor, premotor and supplementary motor areas, but not in the prefrontal cortex. Thus, we finally focused on the prefrontal cortex and examined its activation during apple peeling in 12 subjects using a multichannel NIRS. We subsequently found that regional concentrations of oxygenated hemoglobin significantly increased in the measured region, which encompassed portions of the dorsolateral, ventrolateral and frontopolar areas of the prefrontal cortex. The current study demonstrated that apple peeling as practiced in daily life recruited the prefrontal cortex but that such activation might not be detected for less laborious mock apple peeling that can be performed in an fMRI environment. We suggest the importance of cortical study of an everyday task as it is but not as a simplified form; we also suggest the validity of NIRS for this purpose. Studies on everyday tasks may serve as stepping stone toward understanding human activities in terms of cortical activations.
authors.affiliation: National Food Research Institute, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8642, Japan.
authors.forename: Masako
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Okamoto
authors.forename: Haruka
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Dan
authors.forename: Koji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Shimizu
authors.forename: Kazuhiro
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Takeo
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Amita
authors.forename: Ichiro
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Oda
authors.forename: Ikuo
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Konishi
authors.forename: Kuniko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sakamoto
authors.forename: Seiichiro
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Isobe
authors.forename: Tateo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Suzuki
authors.forename: Kaoru
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kohyama
authors.forename: Ippeita
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Dan
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000328:Adult; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology; D004867:Equipment Design; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000295:instrumentation*; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation*; D007092:Imagination; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000295:instrumentation*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000295:instrumentation*; D008297:Male; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D009048:Motor Skills / Q000502:physiology*; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D010865:Pilot Projects; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D019265:Spectroscopy, Near-Infrared / Q000295:instrumentation*
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen