Dattola Serena, Bonanno Lilla, Ielo Augusto, Quercia Angelica, Quartarone Angelo, La Foresta Fabio
IRCCS Centro Neurolesi Bonino-Pulejo, Via Palermo c/da Casazza, SS. 113, 98124 Messina, Italy.
Department of Biomedical, Dental, Morphological and Functional Imaging Sciences, University of Messina, 98122 Messina, Italy.
Bioengineering (Basel). 2023 Dec 3;10(12):1388. doi: 10.3390/bioengineering10121388.
The neural underpinnings of mental calculation, the fundamentals of arithmetic representations and processes, and the development of arithmetic abilities have been explored by researchers over the years. In the present work, we report a study that analyzes the brain-activated areas of a group of 35 healthy subjects (9 males, 26 females, mean age ± SD = 18.23 ± 2.20 years) who performed a serial subtraction arithmetic task. In contrast to most of the studies in the literature based on fMRI, we performed the brain active source reconstruction starting from EEG signals by means of the eLORETA method. In particular, the subjects were classified as bad counters or good counters, according to the results of the task, and the brain activity of the two groups was compared. The results were statistically significant only in the beta band, revealing that the left limbic lobe was found to be more active in people showing better performance. The limbic lobe is involved in visuospatial processing, memory, arithmetic fact retrieval, and emotions. However, the role of the limbic lobe in mental arithmetic has been barely explored, so these interesting findings could represent a starting point for future in-depth analyses. Since there is evidence in the literature that the motor system is affected by the execution of arithmetic tasks, a more extensive knowledge of the brain activation associated with arithmetic tasks could be exploited not only for the assessment of mathematical skills but also in the evaluation of motor impairments and, consequently, in rehabilitation for motor disorders.
多年来,研究人员一直在探索心算的神经基础、算术表征与过程的基本原理以及算术能力的发展。在本研究中,我们报告了一项对35名健康受试者(9名男性,26名女性,平均年龄±标准差 = 18.23 ± 2.20岁)进行的研究,这些受试者执行了连续减法算术任务。与文献中大多数基于功能磁共振成像(fMRI)的研究不同,我们通过eLORETA方法从脑电图(EEG)信号开始进行脑活动源重建。具体而言,根据任务结果将受试者分为差计数者或好计数者,并比较了两组的脑活动。结果仅在β波段具有统计学意义,表明在表现较好的人群中左边缘叶更活跃。边缘叶参与视觉空间处理、记忆、算术事实检索和情绪。然而,边缘叶在心算中的作用几乎未被探索,因此这些有趣的发现可能代表未来深入分析的起点。由于文献中有证据表明运动系统会受到算术任务执行的影响,对与算术任务相关的脑激活有更广泛的了解不仅可用于评估数学技能,还可用于评估运动障碍,进而用于运动障碍的康复治疗。