Hu Zhishan, Zhang Juan, Couto Tania Alexandra, Xu Shiyang, Luan Ping, Yuan Zhen
Bioimaging Core, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Macau, Macau, SAR, China.
Faculty of Education, University of Macau, Macau, SAR, China.
Brain Topogr. 2018 Nov;31(6):1014-1028. doi: 10.1007/s10548-018-0650-y. Epub 2018 Jun 22.
In this study, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was used to examine the brain activation and connectivity in occipitotemporal cortex during Chinese character recognition (CCR). Eighteen healthy participants were recruited to perform a well-designed task with three categories of stimuli (real characters, pseudo characters, and checkerboards). By inspecting the brain activation difference and its relationship with behavioral data, the left laterality during CCR was clearly identified in the Brodmann area (BA) 18 and 19. In addition, our novel findings also demonstrated that the bilateral superior temporal gyrus (STG), bilateral BA 19, and left fusiform gyrus were also involved in high-level lexical information processing such as semantic and phonological ones. Meanwhile, by examining functional brain networks, we discovered that the right BA 19 exhibited enhanced brain connectivity. In particular, the connectivity in the right fusiform gyrus, right BA 19, and left STG showed significant correlation with the performance of CCR. Consequently, the combination of fNIRS technique with functional network analysis paves a new avenue for improved understanding of the cognitive mechanism underlying CCR.
在本研究中，功能性近红外光谱技术（fNIRS）被用于检测汉字识别（CCR）过程中枕颞叶皮质的脑激活和脑连接情况。招募了18名健康参与者执行一项精心设计的任务，该任务包含三类刺激（真实汉字、假汉字和棋盘格）。通过检查脑激活差异及其与行为数据的关系，在布罗德曼区（BA）18和19中明确识别出CCR过程中的左侧优势。此外，我们的新发现还表明，双侧颞上回（STG）、双侧BA 19和左侧梭状回也参与了语义和语音等高级词汇信息处理。同时，通过检查功能性脑网络，我们发现右侧BA 19表现出增强的脑连接。特别是，右侧梭状回、右侧BA 19和左侧STG中的连接与CCR表现显著相关。因此，fNIRS技术与功能性网络分析的结合为更好地理解CCR背后的认知机制开辟了一条新途径。
