部門公開セミナー

日 時 2014年01月15日 11:00~12:00
場 所 明大寺地区1階大会議室
演 者 石田 裕昭博士(Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), Brain Center)
演 題 Haptic processing in inner perisylvian regions (SII/Insula) of the macaque monkey
要 旨

Neuropsychological studies revealed that damage to SII induces abnormal hand-manipulation, frequently accompanied by impairments of tactile object recognition in the absence of more basic somesthetic dysfunction. Furthermore, the degree of recovery of manual dexterity in stroke patients revealed that it more positively correlates with the activation of SII than of the primary somatosensory cortex (SI). This evidence suggests that dexterous manual control and high-level haptic perception closely tie into each other in the area SII.

In non-human primates, the area SII and the adjacent posterior insular cortex (pIC) show multiple digits and hand representations. Although hodological studies in the macaque monkey brain have revealed that the hand region of SII/pIC is characterized by the presence of dense reciprocal connections with the hand regions of area AIP and area PMv, the physiological properties during dexterous hand manipulation in this area remain largely unknown.

In my talk, I’ll demonstrate a hand-manipulation-related activity in the hand region of SII/pIC of macaque monkey. Our results showed a set of task-related neurons were only activated during monkey’s active hand-manipulation. Furthermore, these hand-manipulation-related neurons showed evident girp-type-selectivity in precision grip.

Most interestingly, in our pilot study we also found a few neurons that responded not only during a specific hand-manipulation of the macaque monkeys such as self-grooming but also during grooming action observation.

Mirror neurons have never been recorded before in the SII/insula, although their existence has been proposed on the basis of human fMRI studies. This new type of mirror neurons will enlarge our understanding of social communication, binding motor responses and social touch.

連絡先 吉田正俊(認知行動発達 内線7764)