身体感覚と空間認識の脳内機構 : fMRI実験による検討(身体の実験科学,2004年度 第2回フォーラム)

抄録

Spatial recognition of near space is closely related to the recognition of the somesthetic sense. Our brain has to integrate spatial information from various modalities to recognize space. In this study, we conducted an fMRI experiment investigating the interaction of visual, tactile, and proprioceptive information in our brain to recognize the position of stimuli. The participants' task was to assess whether visual and tactile stimuli, presented to the right or left were on the same or different sides when subjects crossed or uncrossed their hands. The effect of changing posture was seen in the medial posterior parietal and in the dorsal visual areas. The visual area's activation elicited by posture change suggests a reciprocal process between association cortex and visual cortices in spatial cognition. In addition, the right inferior frontal area was activated by the contextually defined right stimuli. This suggests a higher-level spatial representation and anisotropy of our spatial recognition.