neuronal activity
Research Papers
Evaluating Prefrontal Activation and Its Relationship with Cognitive and Emotional Processes by Means of Hemoencephalography (HEG)
The main aim of this study is to determine the efficacy of the method of diagnosis known as hemoencephalography (HEG), which measures hemodynamic changes in the prefrontal cortex by determining differences in oxygen flow to show patterns of neuronal activity. Of the 5 tests designed for this purpose, 2 are strictly cognitive, while the other 3 have primarily emotional or sensitive content. The tests were applied to a sample of 70 university students. The Wilcoxon nonparametric signed rank test was applied to test the paired differences between the HEG baseline result and the HEG result of the task. Results show, first, that the HEG method successfully determines oxygen flow to the prefrontal cortex and clearly differentiates the subject's baseline from HEG activation during the task (Wilcoxon, p < .05); second, that HEG results vary depending on the type of activity, whether cognitive (low emotional load) or emotional (high emotional load) in such a way that cognitive areas, those located higher in the cortex (dorsolateral prefrontal), show less activity during emotional tests and more activity during cognitive tests, thus associating higher areas (dorsolateral prefrontal) with cognition and deeper areas (medial temporal, medial prefrontal, and cingulate) with emotion. The HEG procedure is effective in detecting states or situations of ailment or suffering not always accompanied by evident external manifestations. Furthermore, the procedure can differentiate between cognitive and emotional processing. The HEG method can help diagnosis in clinical settings due to its ability to detect painful-feeling processing independently of both body and verbal language.
View Full Paper →Self-regulation of local brain activity using real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) measures the blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal related to neuronal activity. So far, this technique has been limited by time-consuming data analysis impeding on-line analysis. In particular, no brain-computer interface (BCI) was available which provided on-line feedback to learn physiological self-regulation of the BOLD signal. Recently, studies have shown that fMRI feedback is feasible and facilitates voluntary control of brain activity. Here we review these studies to make the fMRI feedback methodology accessible to a broader scientific community such as researchers concerned with functional brain imaging and the neurobiology of learning. Methodological and conceptual limitations were substantially reduced by artefact control, sensitivity improvements, real-time algorithms, and adapted experimental designs. Physiological self-regulation of the local BOLD response is a new paradigm for cognitive neuroscience to study brain plasticity and the functional relevance of regulated brain areas by modification of behaviour. Voluntary control of abnormal activity in circumscribed brain areas may even be applied as psychophysiological treatment.
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