TY - JOUR
T1 - Direction of cross-modal information transfer affects human brain activation
T2 - A PET study
AU - Kawashima, Ryuta
AU - Watanabe, Jobu
AU - Kato, Takashi
AU - Nakamura, Akinori
AU - Hatano, Kentaro
AU - Schormann, Torsten
AU - Sato, Kazunori
AU - Fukuda, Hiroshi
AU - Ito, Kengo
AU - Zilles, Karl
PY - 2002
Y1 - 2002
N2 - The purpose of this study was to determine the functional organization of the human brain involved in cross-modal discrimination between tactile and visual information. Regional cerebral blood flow was measured by positron emission tomography in nine right-handed volunteers during four discrimination tasks; tactile-tactile (TT), tactile-visual (TV), visual-tactile (VT), and visual-visual (VV). The subjects were asked either to look at digital cylinders of different diameters or to grasp the digital cylinders with the thumb and index finger of the right hand using haptic interfaces. Compared with the motor control task in which the subjects looked at and grasped cylinders of the same diameter, the right lateral prefrontal cortex and the right inferior parietal lobule were activated in all the four discrimination tasks. In addition, the dorsal premotor cortex, the ventral premotor cortex, and the inferior temporal cortex of the right hemisphere were activated during VT but not during TV. Our results suggest that the human brain mechanisms underlying cross-modal discrimination have two different pathways depending on the temporal order in which stimuli are presented.
AB - The purpose of this study was to determine the functional organization of the human brain involved in cross-modal discrimination between tactile and visual information. Regional cerebral blood flow was measured by positron emission tomography in nine right-handed volunteers during four discrimination tasks; tactile-tactile (TT), tactile-visual (TV), visual-tactile (VT), and visual-visual (VV). The subjects were asked either to look at digital cylinders of different diameters or to grasp the digital cylinders with the thumb and index finger of the right hand using haptic interfaces. Compared with the motor control task in which the subjects looked at and grasped cylinders of the same diameter, the right lateral prefrontal cortex and the right inferior parietal lobule were activated in all the four discrimination tasks. In addition, the dorsal premotor cortex, the ventral premotor cortex, and the inferior temporal cortex of the right hemisphere were activated during VT but not during TV. Our results suggest that the human brain mechanisms underlying cross-modal discrimination have two different pathways depending on the temporal order in which stimuli are presented.
KW - Inferior parietal lobule
KW - Premotor cortex
KW - Tactile information
KW - Visual information
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U2 - 10.1046/j.1460-9568.2002.02053.x
DO - 10.1046/j.1460-9568.2002.02053.x
M3 - Article
C2 - 12153538
AN - SCOPUS:0036457063
SN - 0953-816X
VL - 16
SP - 137
EP - 144
JO - European Journal of Neuroscience
JF - European Journal of Neuroscience
IS - 1
ER -