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MIDIキーボードと機能的磁気共鳴画像法(fMRI)を用い，聴覚フィードバックによって指先の力を調整するときの脳活動を検討した．本研究は，指の力のコントロールにおける聴覚フィードバックの効果と，その時の脳活動について明らかにすることを目的として行った．実験の結果，指先の力を制御する際に音圧と力が対応する聴覚フィードバックが返ってくる場合(Normal条件)の方が，対応していない場合(Reverse条件)よりうまく指先を制御できることが示された．また，力の補正に関わると考えられる脳活動が左角回と右上頭頂小葉で確認された．さらに，左背側前運動皮質や両側の一次聴覚皮質が聴覚フィードバックの音の違いにそれぞれ特異的な応答を示すことが示唆された．この研究は，聴覚と運動の統合メカニズムについて議論する一助となることが期待される．, We conducted an experiment using a keyboard instrument. The purpose of this study was to reveal what kind of auditory feedback is helpful for controlling finger force. Participans were asked to control the force of fingertips depending on auditory feedback, and the brain activities related to the force control were measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging. As a result, it was shown that "Normal condition," in which the intensity of feedback sound increased as the finger force was strengthened, is more effective in controlling the fingertip force than "Reverse condition." Furthermore, we found brain activity associated with adjustment of force control in the left angular gyrus and right superior parietal lobule. In addition, we observed activation patterns specific to feedback sound in the left dorsal premotor cortex and bilateral primary auditory cortex. This study will give an insight into adaptive mechanisms of auditory-motor integration.

Previous studies demonstrate that frontal and parietal cortices are involved in bottom-up and top-down attentional processes. However, their respective contribution to these processes remains controversial. The purpose of the current study was to compare the causal contribution of frontal and parietal cortices to the control of bottom-up and top-down visual attention using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). Subjects performed visual search for targets that were easy (pop-out) or difficult (non-pop-out) to distinguish from distractors. Three sites of interest were used, based on the individual fMRI activation during the performance of a search task: the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (rDLPFC), the right frontal eye field (rFEF) and the right superior parietal lobule (rSPL). Online rTMS stimulation, with the search onset, showed that relative to rTMS over the vertex, rTMS over the rDLPFC, the rFEF and the rSPL increased the search reaction time (RTs) in the non-pop-out condition. In comparison, no TMS effect was found in the pop-out condition. In addition, the search RT cost caused by the non-pop-out condition was larger after the rDLPFC-TMS compared to the vertex-TMS. The findings suggest that the frontal and parietal cortical regions are both involved in attentional processing during top-down visual search, and that the rDLPFC is causally related to the executive control of cognitive load increases between the pop-out and the non-pop-out search.

Male predominance is a well-known feature of Internet gaming disorder (IGD), with a reported male to female ratio of 3:1. Because of the overwhelming focus on males, little is known about the neural basis of sex differences in IGD, especially neuroanatomical features. Thus, investigations on sex differences with an adequate sample size are critical for improving the understanding of biological mechanisms underlying IGD. Structural magnetic resonance imaging data were acquired from 62 IGD subjects (29 males, 33 females) and 71 recreational game users (RGUs) (37 males, 34 females) with well-matched age and education levels. Group-by-sex interaction in cortical thickness was analyzed, and the correlations between cortical thickness and addiction severity were calculated. We detected a group-by-sex interaction in the bilateral rostral middle frontal gyri (MFG), left superior frontal gyrus (SFG), left supramarginal gyrus (SMG), right posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), and right superior parietal lobule (SPL). Post-hoc analyses revealed that, compared with same-sex RGUs, male IGD subjects had increased cortical thickness and female IGD subjects had reduced cortical thickness beside their right PCC. By contrast, male IGD subjects had reduced cortical thickness and female IGD subjects had increased cortical thickness in their right PCC. Moreover, only females showed significant negative correlations between the cortical thickness and their self-reported cravings and Internet addiction test scores. For female IGD subjects, the reduced cortical thickness, combined with the negative correlations of addiction severities, suggests the great effect created by IGD in the brain regions. Males and females may be affected differently by IGD, with females being more vulnerable to it. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier B.V.]

Several studies have shown enhanced performance in change detection tasks when spatial cues indicating the probe’s location are presented after the memory array has disappeared (i.e., retro-cues) compared with spatial cues that are presented simultaneously with the test array (i.e., post-cues). This retro-cue benefit led some authors to propose the existence of two different stores of visual short-term memory: a weak but high-capacity store (fragile memory (FM)) linked to the effect of retro-cues and a robust but low-capacity store (working memory (WM)) linked to the effect of post-cues. The former is thought to be an attention-free system, whereas the latter would strictly depend on selective attention. Nonetheless, this dissociation is under debate, and several authors do not consider retro-cues as a proxy to measure the existence of an independent memory system (e.g., FM).We approached this controversial issue by altering the attention-related functions in the right superior parietal lobule (SPL) by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), whose effects were mediated by the integrity of the right superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF). Specifically, we asked whether TMS on the SPL affected the performance of retro cues vs. post-cues to a similar extent. The results showed that TMS on the SPL, mediated by right SLF-III integrity, produced a modulation of the retro-cue benefit, namely a memory capacity decrease in the post-cues but not in the retro-cues. These findings have strong implications for the debate on the existence of independent stages of visual short-term memory and for the growing literature showing a key role of the SLF for explaining the variability of TMS effects across participants., Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, European Commission PSI2015-73503-JIN

There are few things as irrefutable as the evidence that our limbs belong to us. However, persons with body integrity dysphoria (BID) [1] deny the ownership of one of their fully functional limbs and seek its amputation [2]. We tapped into the brain mechanisms of BID, examining sixteen men desiring the removal of the left healthy leg. The primary sensorimotor area of the to-be-removed leg and the core area of the conscious representation of body size and shape (the right superior parietal lobule [rSPL]) [3, 4] were less functionally connected to the rest of the brain. Furthermore, the left premotor cortex, reportedly involved in the multisensory integration of limb information [5-7], and the rSPL were atrophic. The more atrophic the rSPL, the stronger the desire for amputation, and the more an individual pretended to be an amputee by using wheelchairs or crutches to solve the mismatch between the desired and actual body. Our findings illustrate the pivotal role of the connectivity of the primary sensorimotor limb area in the mediation of the feeling of body ownership. They also delineate the morphometric and functional alterations in areas of higher-order body representation possibly responsible for the dissatisfaction with a standard body configuration. The neural correlates of BID may foster the understanding of other neuropsychiatric disorders involving the bodily self. Ultimately, they may help us understand what most of us take for granted, i.e., the experience of body and self as a seamless unity.

Cyclothymic temperament possesses a central dimension that includes rapid fluctuations in mood and emotional instability, and it is regarded as a prodromal state of bipolar disorder. The aim of the present study is to explore the neural correlates of cyclothymic temperament. We used the data of 55 healthy participants in our previous study and analyzed the association between cyclothymic temperament scores rated by the Temperament Evaluation of Memphis, Pisa, Paris and San Diego-Autoquestionnaire (TEMPS-A) and the uptake of [18F]-FDG measured by positron emission tomography (PET). A whole brain analysis revealed a cluster of [18F]-FDG uptake significantly and positively associated with cyclothymic temperament scores, located in the right superior parietal lobule (SPL). Even after adjustment for relevant factors, there remained a significant cluster of [18F]-FDG uptake with cyclothymic temperament scores in the right SPL. In ROI analyses, there were similar significant peaks in the right SPL in association with cyclothymic temperament scores. These findings suggest that the right superior parietal lobule may be one of the neural correlates of cyclothymic temperament.

IMPACT: This study examines gray matter volume differences resulting from the bilingual experience in children and adults allowing us to better understand the brains of over half of the world’s population that speaks more than one language. OBJECTIVES/GOALS: Literature is mixed regarding a bilingual advantage in executive control (EC). While it has been shown that young adult bilinguals have greater gray matter volume (GMV) than monolinguals in EC regions, there is behavioral evidence that suggests such difference would be more pronounced in children. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: Using SPM12 to test this hypothesis, we used a whole-brain t-test to compare GMV in 35 English-speaking monolingual and 20 Spanish-English early (learned both languages before 6 years old) bilingual children. Next, we submitted both groups of children to an ANOVA with 42 English speaking monolingual and 26 Spanish-English bilingual adults to test for an interaction of Language Experience by Age Group at the level of the whole brain. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: e between-group comparison of bilingual and monolingual children, revealed more GMV in bilingual compared to monolingual children in regions associated with EC (right middle and inferior frontal gyri, superior parietal lobule, and precuneus). Our second analysis, an ANOVA comparing bilingual and monolingual children and adults, revealed an interaction in which bilingual>monolingual GMV in children was greater than any bilingual>monolingual GMV (or bilingual=monolingual GMV) in the adult groups in the right superior parietal lobule (BA1). No regions indicated that bilingual>monolingual GMV was more pronounced in adults. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF FINDINGS: These results provide further evidence for GMV differences in early bilinguals in regions associated with EC and indicate that more GMV differences exist between bilingual and monolingual children than adults.

Stroke patients with motor deficits typically feature enhanced neural activity in several cortical areas when moving their affected hand. However, also healthy subjects may show higher levels of neural activity in tasks with higher motor demands. Therefore, the question arises to what extent stroke-related overactivity reflects performance-level-associated recruitment of neural resources rather than stroke-induced neural reorganization. We here investigated which areas in the lesioned brain enable the flexible adaption to varying motor demands compared to healthy subjects. Accordingly, eleven well-recovered left-hemispheric chronic stroke patients were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Motor system activity was assessed for fist closures at increasing movement frequencies performed with the affected/right or unaffected/left hand. In patients, an increasing movement rate of the affected hand was associated with stronger neural activity in ipsilesional/left primary motor cortex (M1) but unlike in healthy controls also in contralesional/right dorsolateral premotor cortex (PMd) and contralesional/right superior parietal lobule (SPL). Connectivity analyses using dynamic causal modeling revealed stronger coupling of right SPL onto affected/left M1 in patients but not in controls when moving the affected/right hand independent of the movement speed. Furthermore, coupling of right SPL was positively coupled with the "active" ipsilesional/left M1 when stroke patients moved their affected/right hand with increasing movement frequency. In summary, these findings are compatible with a supportive role of right SPL with respect to motor function of the paretic hand in the reorganized brain.

Design fixation refers to blind adherence to a set of ideas, which can limit the output of conceptual design. Engineering designers tend to fixate on features of pre-existing solutions and consequently generate designs with similar features. The objective of this study is to leverage functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study the brain activity of engineering designers during conceptual design in order to understand whether/where design fixation can be detected in a person’s brain when solving design problems. Design solutions indicated that fixation effects were detectable at a statistically significant level. fMRI results show increased activation in areas associated with visuospatial processing when comparing ideation activities using an Example solution to No Example solution. Activation was found in the right inferior temporal gyrus, left middle occipital gyrus, and right superior parietal lobule regions. The left lingual and superior frontal gyri were found to be less active in the example condition; these gyri are close in proximity to the prefrontal cortex, associated with creative output. The spatial patterns of activation provide evidence that a shift in mental resources can occur when a designer becomes fixated. For designers, the timing of ideation relative to the timing of benchmarking existing solutions should be considered.

Symbolic arithmetic is a complex, uniquely human ability that is acquired through direct instruction. In contrast, the capacity to mentally add and subtract nonsymbolic quantities such as dot arrays emerges without instruction and can be seen in human infants and nonhuman animals. One possibility is that the mental manipulation of nonsymbolic arrays provides a critical scaffold for developing symbolic arithmetic abilities. To explore this hypothesis, we examined whether there is a shared neural basis for nonsymbolic and symbolic double-digit addition. In parallel, we asked whether there are brain regions that are associated with nonsymbolic and symbolic addition independently. First, relative to visually matched control tasks, we found that both nonsymbolic and symbolic addition elicited greater neural signal in the bilateral intraparietal sulcus (IPS), bilateral inferior temporal gyrus, and the right superior parietal lobule. Subsequent representational similarity analyses revealed that the neural similarity between nonsymbolic and symbolic addition was stronger relative to the similarity between each addition condition and its visually matched control task, but only in the bilateral IPS. These findings suggest that the IPS is involved in arithmetic calculation independent of stimulus format.

Recent studies show decreased functional connectivity in the default mode network (DMN) in PTSD; however, few have directly examined combat trauma specifically. There is limited understanding of how combat itself may affect the DMN. Some literature suggests that trauma exposure, rather than PTSD, can disrupt the DMN. To further elucidate the effect of trauma and PTSD on the DMN, we investigated DMN functional connectivity during the resting-state in veterans with PTSD, combat-exposed controls, and never-traumatized healthy controls. Results revealed that DMN connectivity was reduced in veterans exposed to combat trauma with and without PTSD compared to healthy civilian controls. Specifically, both groups of veterans demonstrated weaker connectivity within a network involving the precuneus, medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and right superior parietal lobule regardless of whether the mPFC or precuneus was chosen as a seed region. Findings suggest that the experience of trauma, rather than the pathology of PTSD, may be related to DMN changes.

Objectives: We aimed to investigate the relationship between education and cortical thickness in cognitively normal individuals to determine whether education attenuated the association of advanced aging and cortical thinning. Methods: A total of 1,959 participants, in whom education levels were available, were included in the final analysis. Cortical thickness was measured on high-resolution MRIs using a surface-based method. Multiple linear regression analysis was performed for education level and cortical thickness, after controlling for possible confounders. Results: High levels of education were correlated with increased mean cortical thickness throughout the entire cortex ( p = 0.003). This association persisted after controlling for vascular risk factors. Statistical maps of cortical thickness showed that the high levels of education were correlated with increased cortical thickness in the bilateral premotor areas, anterior cingulate cortices, perisylvian areas, right superior parietal lobule, left lingual gyrus, and occipital pole. There were also interactive effects of age and education on the mean cortical thickness ( p = 0.019). Conclusions: Our findings suggest the protective effect of education on cortical thinning in cognitively normal older individuals, regardless of vascular risk factors. This effect was found only in the older participants, suggesting that the protective effects of education on cortical thickness might be achieved by increased resistance to structural loss from aging rather than by simply providing a fixed advantage in the brain.

There are only a few published reports of neural abnormalities within the families of children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to compare cerebral activation of ADHD and control biological parent-child dyads during forethought, a prospective function of working memory. Reduced activations in ADHD dyads were found in the inferior frontal gyrus, right superior parietal lobule and left inferior parietal lobule. This suggests that fronto-parietal abnormalities are shared within ADHD families.

Neural prostheses have generally relied on signals from cortical motor regions to control reaching movements of a robotic arm. However, little work has been done in exploring the involvement of nonmotor cortical and associative regions during motor tasks. In this study, we identify regions which may encode direction during planning and movement of a center-out motor task. Local field potentials were collected using stereoelectroencephalography (SEEG) from nine epilepsy patients implanted with multiple depth electrodes for clinical purposes. Spectral analysis of the recorded data was performed using nonparametric statistical techniques to identify regions that may encode direction of movements during the motor task. The analysis revealed several nonmotor regions; including the right insular cortex, right temporal pole, right superior parietal lobule, and the right lingual gyrus, that encode directionality before and after movement onset. We observed that each of these regions encode direction in different frequency bands. This preliminary study suggests that nonmotor regions may be useful in assisting in neural prosthetic control.

Visual cues contribute to the creation of an observer's egocentric reference frame, within which the locations and orientations of objects can be judged. However, these cues can also be misleading. In the rod-and-frame illusion, for example, a large tilted frame distorts the observer's sense of vertical, causing an enclosed rod to appear tilted in the opposite direction. To determine the brain region responsible for processing these spatial cues, we used TMS to suppress neural activity in the superior parietal lobule of healthy observers. Stimulation of the right hemisphere, but not the left, caused a significant reduction in rod-and-frame susceptibility. In contrast, a tilt illusion caused by a mechanism that does not involve a distortion of the observer's egocentric reference frame was unaffected. These results demonstrate that the right superior parietal lobule is actively involved in processing the contextual cues that contribute to our perception of egocentric space.

Stimulus-driven attention can improve working memory (WM) when drawn to behaviorally relevant information, but the neural mechanisms underlying this effect are unclear. The present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to test competing hypotheses regarding the nature of the benefits of stimulus-driven attention to WM: that stimulus-driven attention benefits WM directly via salience detection, that stimulus-driven attention benefits WM incidentally via cognitive control mechanisms recruited to reduce interference from salient features, or that both mechanisms are co-involved in enhancing WM for salient information. To test these hypotheses, we observed activation in brain regions associated with cognitive control and salience detection. We found 2 cognitive control regions that were associated with enhanced memory for salient stimuli: a region in the right superior parietal lobule and a region in the right inferior frontal junction. No regions associated with salience detection were found to show this effect. These fMRI results support the hypothesis that benefits to WM from stimulus-driven attention occur primarily as a result of cognitive control and top-down factors rather than pure bottom-up aspects of stimulus-driven attention.

© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. In the present study, we explored how Age of Acquisition (AoA) of L2 affected brain structures in bilingual individuals. Thirty-six native English speakers who were bilingual were scanned with high resolution MRI. After MRI signal intensity inhomogeneity correction, we applied both voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and surface-based morphometry (SBM) approaches to the data. VBM analysis was performed using FSL's standard VBM processing pipeline. For the SBM analysis, we utilized a semi-automated sulci delineation procedure, registered the brains to an atlas, and extracted measures of twenty four pre-selected regions of interest. We addressed three questions: (1) Which areas are more susceptible to differences in AoA? (2) How do AoA, proficiency and current level of exposure work together in predicting structural differences in the brain? And (3) What is the direction of the effect of AoA on regional volumetric and surface measures? Both VBM and SBM results suggested that earlier second language exposure was associated with larger volumes in the right parietal cortex. Consistently, SBM showed that the cortical area of the right superior parietal lobule increased as AoA decreased. In contrast, in the right pars orbitalis of the inferior frontal gyrus, AoA, proficiency, and current level of exposure are equally important in accounting for the structural differences. We interpret our results in terms of current theory and research on the effects of L2 learning on brain structures and functions.

This study investigated whether different brain areas are involved during working memory tasks related to first (L1) and second (L2) languages. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was performed on 24 bilingual native Korean speakers who acquired English as their L2 after the age of 12. Their L2 proficiency ranged from low to moderate. The images were acquired while the participants performed word recognition tasks in their L1 and L2. Different areas of activation were identified for Korean and English verbal working memory (KVWM and EVWM) tasks and more right hemisphere activation was found during L2 processing than during L1 processing. Direct comparison between activation during L1 and L2 processing revealed that additional hemisphere regions were recruited during the EVWM condition than during the KVWM condition, but no significantly greater activation occurred during the KVWM task than during the EVWM task. This pattern of results indicates that distinct brain areas are associated with L1 and L2 processing, and more diverse and right hemisphere areas are activated during L2 processing compared to L1 processing among low to moderately proficient late bilinguals. The activated areas during L2 processing relative to L1 processing were the left precuneus (BA 7), right superior parietal lobule (BA 7), left middle occipital gyrus (BA 19), and left cerebellum, suggesting that participants might rely more on visual cues and visual processing for word recoding and visual analysis during L2 processing than during L1 processing. It is also plausible that participants engaged in attention-based rehearsal during L2 processing.

Superior parietal lobule, which relates to spatial attention and shifts of spatial attention, is believed to play a key role in perceptual reversal. As an active approach to investigate brain function, rTMS can make artificial excitatory or inhibitory activation in a local region of brain, and when compared to the passive approach (normal brain activation), rTMS provides a flexible and controllable method to investigate the function of the interested region. In this study, to investigate the function of the right superior parietal lobule during perceptual reversal, a 1 Hz 240-pulse biphasic rTMS at 90% of resting motor threshold was applied over the right superior parietal lobule and right posterior temporal lobe, respectively. As a control, a No-TMS Trial was also conducted. The inter-reversal time of perceptual reversals between these three conditions were compared. It was found that compared to the other two conditions, rTMS applied over right posterior temporal lobe caused longer inter-reversal time. This result suggests that the right superior parietal lobule plays a critical role in perceptual reversal. Moreover, it suggests that 1 Hz 240-pulse rTMS causes a suppression effect on perceptual reversal.

There is a lack of longitudinal research to evaluate the function of neurons’ adaptive changes within the sensorimotor network (SMN) following recovery after cervical cord decompression. Regional homogeneity (ReHo) may provide information that is critical to fully understand CSM-related functional neural synchrony alterations. The purpose of this study was to assess the ReHo alterations of resting state-functional MRI (rs-fMRI) within pre- and postdecompression CSM and healthy controls (HC) and its correlations with clinical indices. Predecompression CSM demonstrated a significantly lower ReHo in the left primary sensory cortex and primary motor cortex (PostG/PreG) but enhanced ReHo in the right superior parietal lobule (SPL) compared with HC. In comparison with predecompression CSM, the postdecompression CSM showed increased ReHo in the left PostG/PreG but significantly lower ReHo in the right SPL compared with HC patients. Abnormal ReHo regions in pre- or postdecompression CSM showed no significant correlation with the Japanese Orthopaedic Association (JOA) scores, Neck Disability Index (NDI) scores, and disease duration (P>0.05). This result demonstrated disrupted regional homogeneity within SMN in CSM. This adaptive change in the brain may favor the preservation of sensorimotor networks before and after cervical cord decompression and clinical symptoms independent of ReHo within SMN.

A critical sub-process of category learning is detecting the invariance between categorical members. To examine brain activation associated with invariance detection at different steps of category learning, a stepwise category induction task was used in the present study. Within each trial, three stimuli were displayed sequentially, and participants were asked to learn the target category corresponding to the invariance among stimuli. Results revealed that invariance detection activated the fronto-parietal network. However, the frontal and parietal cortices functioned differently throughout the different steps of invariance detection. The left middle frontal gyrus (BA 9) was highly activated in both steps of invariance detection, but the posterior parietal regions, especially the right superior parietal lobule (BA 7), were more active in the final step of invariance detection, reflecting increased attention to the completion of category learning and the preparation for a subsequent response. Furthermore, a psychophysiological interaction analysis (PPI) revealed increased connectivity between the left middle frontal gyrus and the bilateral parietal cortex during the final step of invariance detection. Overall, the present findings imply the necessary role of the fronto-parietal network in variance detection.

Electrophysiological data in primates suggest that the superior parietal lobule integrates the position of the limbs to construct complex representations of postures. Although in humans the neural basis of these mechanisms remains largely unknown, neuropsychological studies have implicated left superior parietal regions. We devised a simple functional magnetic resonance imaging paradigm aimed at exploring this hypothesis in healthy humans. Strong activation was obtained within the left but not the right superior parietal lobule, providing additional evidence that this structure may play a key role in body part localization processing.

Observing actions performed by others engages one's own sensorimotor regions, typically with greater activity for actions within one's own motor abilities or for which one has prior experience. However, it is unclear how experience modulates the neural response during the observation of impossible actions, beyond one's own abilities. Using fMRI, we scanned typically-developed participants as they observed actions performed by a novel biological effector (the residual limb of a woman born without arms) and a familiar biological effector (a hand). Participants initially demonstrated greater activity in the bilateral inferior and superior parietal cortices when observing actions made by the residual limb compared to the hand, with more empathic participants activating the right inferior parietal lobule, corresponding to the posterior component of the action observation network, more strongly. Activity in the parietal regions may indicate matching the kinematics of a novel effector to one's own existing sensorimotor system, a process that may be more active in more empathic individuals. Participants then received extended visual exposure to each effector, after which they showed little difference between activation in response to residual limb compared to hand actions, only in the right superior parietal lobule. This suggests that visual experience may attenuate the difference between how residual limb and hand actions are represented using one's own body representations, allowing us to flexibly map physically different others onto our own body representations.

The question of how the human brain combines disparate sensory inputs to construct a unified body image is of longstanding interest^1,2,3^ . We approached this subject by studying the unusual medical condition of apotemnophilia, in which otherwise mentally normal individuals express the strong and persistent desire for the amputation of a specific healthy limb^4,5,6^ . Here we show using functional brain imaging - magnetoencephalography (MEG) - that the condition is characterised by an absence of activity in the right superior parietal lobule (SPL) when the affected limb is touched. When this discovery is combined with our earlier finding of a simultaneous increase in skin conductance response (SCR) on touching the affected limb^7^ , which reflects increased sympathetic nervous system activity relating to the limb^8^ , we conclude that what has been regarded as a purely psychological condition, actually has a neurological basis and is caused by a failure to represent one or more limbs in the right SPL. This has the bizarre consequence that although sufferers can feel the affected limb being touched, it does not actually integrate into their body image - a mismatch that results in a desire for the affected limb to be amputated.

Apotemnophilia, a disorder that blurs the distinction between neurology and psychiatry, is characterized by the intense and longstanding desire for amputation of a specific limb. Here we present evidence from two individuals suggestive that this condition, long thought to be entirely psychological in origin, actually has a neurological basis. We found heightened skin conductance response to pinprick below the desired line of amputation. We propose apotemnophilia arises from congenital dysfunction of the right superior parietal lobule and its connection with the insula.

Objective: To observe heroin abstainers’ cerebral functional changes of cognitive attention on the heroinrelated cue, positive and negative emotional cues before and after electroacupuncture intervention, and to explore the possibly involved neural mechanism in relapse and central principles of electroacupuncture intervention. Methods: Magnetic resonance imaging technique as well as Block and Dot-probe event-related stimulating modes were used to compare and analyze images obtained from fMRI-BOLD technique before and after electroacupuncture intervention. Results: In the attention shift task, significantly stronger activation intensity was shown in the dorsolateral frontal cortexes, inferior frontal gyri, anterior cingulate cortexes and left corpus striatum after electroacupuncture treatment. In the attentional bias task, after electroacupuncture treatment, the activation volume of the dorsolateral areas of the left frontal lobe decreased significantly, and the activation intensity of the right superior parietal lobule increased. Conclusions: Heroin abstainers showed significantly higher attentional bias to visual drug-related cue than to positive and negative emotional cues, and they had higher attentional bias to the processing of negative emotion than to the positive emotional cue. Electroacupuncture intervention could obviously lower the attention level of heroin abstainers to the drug-related cue, inhibit the susceptibility of heroin abstainers to negative emotion and promote the rehabilitation of cognitive function of emotion of the brain.

Past research about perceptual reversals of ambiguous figures indicated that the superior parietal lobule is involved in perceptual reversals. To investigate the rTMS effect over the right superior parietal lobule on perceptual reversals, three kinds of trials, i.e., Target, Control and No-TMS trials were performed in the present study. In the Target trial, rTMS was applied over the right superior parietal lobule. In the Control trial, rTMS was applied over the right posterior temporal lobe. In the No-TMS trial, no TMS was applied over the subject's skull. The inter-reversal times of perceptual reversals between these three trials were compared. It was suggested that the right superior parietal lobule plays a critical role in perceptual reversals of ambiguous figures.

The purpose of this study was to clarify the neurophysiologic basis of oromotor deficits in a patient with atypical rolandic epilepsy. We investigated magnetoencephalographic analysis of rolandic discharges with right predominance before and during clonazepam therapy. Before clonazepam administration, current sources of rolandic discharges were broadly distributed in the secondary sensory cortex, superior temporal gyrus, and parietal association area in addition to hand and orofacial division of the primary somatosensory cortex. During clonazepam therapy, oromotor deficits were improved, along with a decrease in rolandic discharge, and current sources of residual right-sided rolandic discharges were shifted to the right superior parietal lobule. Taking the clinical course and magnetoencephalographic findings together, the distributed rolandic discharge focus might be closely related to oromotor deficits, and clonazepam was effective for the disorder. ( J Child Neurol 2004;19:456-459).

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Few studies have directly compared the neural correlates of spatial attention (i.e., attention to a particular location) and nonspatial attention (i.e., attention to a feature in the visual scene) using well-controlled tasks. Here, we investigated the neural correlates of spatial and nonspatial attention in humans using intracranial electroencephalography. The topography and number of electrodes showing significant event-related desynchronization (ERD) or event-related synchronization (ERS) in different frequency bands were studied in 13 epileptic patients. Performance was not significantly different between the two conditions. In both conditions, ERD in the low-frequency bands and ERS in the high-frequency bands were present bilaterally in the parietal cortex (prominently on the right hemisphere) and frontal regions. In addition to these common changes, spatial attention involved right-lateralized activity that was maximal in the right superior parietal lobule (SPL), whereas nonspatial attention involved wider brain networks including the bilateral parietal, frontal, and temporal regions, but still had maximal activity in the right parietal lobe. Within the parietal lobe, spatial attention involved ERD or ERS in the right SPL, whereas nonspatial attention involved ERD or ERS in the right inferior parietal lobule. These findings reveal that common as well as different brain networks are engaged in spatial and nonspatial attention. Hum Brain Mapp 37:3041-3054, 2016. © 2016 The Authors Human Brain Mapping Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

A man with a tumor in the right superior parietal lobule had difficulty reaching for visualized objects. There were no significant deficits in visual sensation, visual attention, somatosensory function, elementary motility, praxis, or visuospatial performance. If allowed to visually fixate the target before reaching, he misreached only with his left arm and only when he was not allowed to observe the reaching limb. If he was required to maintain central visual fixation while reaching into his peripheral visual fields, his left arm misreached into both visual hemifields but his right arm misreached only into the left visual hemifield. These results demonstrate abnormalities, referable to both the contralateral arm and the contralateral visual field, that can neither be reduced to elementary disturbances of visual or somatosensory function nor to an elementary disturbance of motility. This pattern of misreaching has not been previously reported in human subjects or in experimental animals, but this may be attributable to differences of methodology. The misreaching observed in this patient may correspond to loss of posterior parietal neurons serving a supramodal integrative function.