title: Brain activities on fMRI using the shiritori task in normal subjects.
abstract: Shiritori is a popular Japanese word chain game that resembles verbal fluency tasks used in Western countries. Recently, shiritori has been used to determine the dominant hemisphere for language and as a rehabilitation tool. However, there are few reports of neuroimaging during shiritori. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to conduct a detailed study of brain activities during shiritori and observed activation not only of the left inferior frontal gyrus (including the pars opecularis, the pars triangularis and the pars orbitalis), which is a language-related area, but also of the left superior and middle frontal gyri, the right pars orbitalis (inferior frontal gyrus), and the right cerebellar hemisphere. Shiritori is a useful tool for psychological study and rehabilitation.
authors.affiliation: Kawanonajima Hospital, Japan. inouemas64@gmail.com
authors.forename: Masayuki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Inoue
authors.forename: Takefumi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ueno
authors.forename: Kiichiro
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Morita
authors.forename: Yoshihisa
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shoji
authors.forename: Toshimasa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Matsuoka
authors.forename: Ryo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Fujiki
authors.forename: Toshi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Abe
authors.forename: Naohisa
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Uchimura
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000473:pathology; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D007802:Language; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D059906:Neuroimaging; D015203:Reproducibility of Results