Istituto di Neuroscienze, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Parma, Italy.
Dipartimento di Medicina e Chirurgia, Università degli Studi di Parma, Parma, Italy.
CNS Neurosci Ther. 2018 Aug;24(8):685-693. doi: 10.1111/cns.12997. Epub 2018 Jun 20.
In this review, we discuss first the anatomical and lesion studies that allowed the localization of fundamental functions in the cerebral cortex of primates including humans. Subsequently, we argue that the years from the end of the Second World War until the end of the last century represented the "golden age" of system neuroscience. In this period, the mechanisms-not only the localization-underlying sensory, and in particular visual functions were described, followed by those underlying cognitive functions and housed in temporal, parietal, and premotor areas. At the end of the last century, brain imaging techniques were developed that allowed the assessment of the functions of different cortical areas in a more precise and sophisticated way. However, brain imaging tells little about the neural mechanisms underlying functions. Furthermore, the brain imaging suffers from 3 major problems: time is absent, the data are merely correlative and the testing is often not ecological. We conclude our review discussing the possibility that these pitfalls might be overcome by using intracortical recordings (eg stereo-EEG), which have millisecond time resolution, allow direct electrical stimulation of specific sites, and finally enable to study patients while freely moving.
在这篇综述中，我们首先讨论了使我们能够在包括人类在内的灵长类动物大脑皮层中定位基本功能的解剖学和病变研究。随后，我们认为，从第二次世界大战结束到上世纪末的这段时间代表了系统神经科学的“黄金时代”。在这一时期，人们不仅描述了感觉功能（特别是视觉功能）的定位机制，还描述了认知功能的定位机制，这些功能定位于颞叶、顶叶和运动前区。在上世纪末，开发了脑成像技术，使得可以更精确和复杂地评估不同皮质区域的功能。然而，脑成像在很大程度上无法揭示功能背后的神经机制。此外，脑成像存在三个主要问题：时间缺失、数据仅仅是相关的，而且测试通常不是生态的。我们在综述的最后讨论了使用皮层内记录（例如立体脑电图）来克服这些缺陷的可能性，这种方法具有毫秒级的时间分辨率，允许对特定部位进行直接电刺激，并且最终能够在患者自由移动时进行研究。
