Cortical Activation Associated with Passive Movements of the Human Index Finger: An MEG Study

We recorded somatosensory evoked fields to passive extensions of the left and right index fingers in eight healthy adults. A new nonmagnetic device was designed to produce calibrated extensions of 19 degrees, with a mean angular velocity of 630 degrees/s. The responses, recorded with a 306-channel neuromagnetometer, were modeled with current dipoles. The earliest activation was in the primary somatosensory cortex, with peaks at 36-58 and 30-82 ms for left and right index finger extensions, respectively. Later signals were observed in the left second somatosensory (SII) cortex in six of eight subjects at 75-175 and 75-155 ms for left- and right-sided extensions, respectively; three subjects showed bilateral SII activation in at least one condition. Our results suggest a predominant role for the human left SII cortex in proprioceptive processing.

[1]  H Shibasaki,et al.  Cortical potentials following voluntary and passive finger movements. , 1980, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[2]  Ernst Fernando Lopes Da Silva Niedermeyer,et al.  Electroencephalography, basic principles, clinical applications, and related fields , 1982 .

[3]  R Hari,et al.  Interaction of afferent impulses in the human primary sensorimotor cortex. , 1992, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[4]  R. Ilmoniemi,et al.  Magnetoencephalography-theory, instrumentation, and applications to noninvasive studies of the working human brain , 1993 .

[5]  R. Hari,et al.  Functional Organization of the Human First and Second Somatosensory Cortices: a Neuromagnetic Study , 1993, The European journal of neuroscience.

[6]  S. Kiebel,et al.  Brain Representation of Active and Passive Movements , 1996, NeuroImage.

[7]  H Suzuki,et al.  Somatosensory evoked magnetic fields following passive finger movement. , 1997, Brain research. Cognitive brain research.

[8]  V. Jousmäki,et al.  Right-hemisphere preponderance of responses to painful CO2 stimulation of the human nasal mucosa , 1997, PAIN.

[9]  F. Chollet,et al.  Event-Related Potentials Elicited by Passive Movements in Humans: Characterization, Source Analysis, and Comparison to fMRI , 1998, NeuroImage.

[10]  R. Hari,et al.  Magnetoencephalography in the study of human somatosensory cortical processing. , 1999, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences.

[11]  Ipsilateral Movement-Evoked Fields Reconsidered , 1999, NeuroImage.

[12]  T. Mima,et al.  Brain structures related to active and passive finger movements in man. , 1999, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[13]  F Chollet,et al.  Neural Substrate for the Effects of Passive Training on Sensorimotor Cortical Representation: A Study with Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Healthy Subjects , 2000, Journal of cerebral blood flow and metabolism : official journal of the International Society of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism.

[14]  C. Weiller,et al.  Passive finger movement evoked fields in magnetoencephalography , 2000, Experimental Brain Research.

[15]  M. Wiesendanger,et al.  Different Ipsilateral Representations for Distal and Proximal Movements in the Sensorimotor Cortex: Activation and Deactivation Patterns , 2001, NeuroImage.

[16]  R. Coghill,et al.  Hemispheric lateralization of somatosensory processing. , 2001, Journal of neurophysiology.

[17]  F. Chollet,et al.  Within-Session and Between-Session Reproducibility of Cerebral Sensorimotor Activation: A Test–Retest Effect Evidenced with Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging , 2001, Journal of cerebral blood flow and metabolism : official journal of the International Society of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism.

[18]  Riitta Hari,et al.  Sustained Activation of the Human SII Cortices by Stimulus Trains , 2001, NeuroImage.

[19]  Riitta Hari,et al.  Left-Hemisphere-Dominant SII Activation after Bilateral Median Nerve Stimulation , 2002, NeuroImage.

[20]  Hiroshi Shibasaki,et al.  Somatosensory evoked potentials following proprioceptive stimulation of finger in man , 1996, Experimental Brain Research.