Laboratory of Psychology, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, 1-20-1 Handayama, Higashi-ku, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, 431-3192, Japan.
Faculty of Psychology, Otemon Gakuin University, 2-1-15 Nishi-Ai , Ibaraki, Osaka, 567-8502, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2021 Jul 19;11(1):14659. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-93961-8.
Accurate perception of the orientations of the body axis and gravity is essential for actions. The ability to perceive these orientations during head and body tilt varies across individuals, and its underlying neural basis is unknown. To address this, we investigated the association between inter-individual differences in local gray matter (GM) volume and inter-individual differences in the ability to estimate the directions of body longitudinal axis or gravity during whole-body tilt using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analysis in 50 healthy adults (20-46 years, 25 men and 25 women). Although no anatomical regions were identified relating to performance requiring estimates of gravitational direction, we found a significant correlation between the GM volume in the right middle occipital gyrus and the ability to estimate the body axis orientation. This finding provides the first evidence on neuroanatomical substrates of the perception of body axis orientation during body tilt.
准确感知身体轴和重力的方向对于动作至关重要。在头部和身体倾斜时感知这些方向的能力因人而异，其潜在的神经基础尚不清楚。为了解决这个问题，我们使用基于体素的形态测量学（VBM）分析，在 50 名健康成年人（20-46 岁，25 名男性和 25 名女性）中，研究了个体间局部灰质（GM）体积差异与个体间在全身倾斜时估计身体纵轴或重力方向能力之间的关联。尽管没有确定与需要估计重力方向的表现相关的解剖区域，但我们发现右中枕叶回的 GM 体积与估计身体轴方向的能力之间存在显著相关性。这一发现为身体倾斜时身体轴方向感知的神经解剖学基础提供了第一个证据。
