RUI: fMRI Investigation of the Role of Motor Processes in Mental Rotation

心理旋转使人能够参与各种空间推理任务，从解决几何问题到阅读地图，再到学习如何跳舞。该领域的大部分经验工作都集中在物体的心理旋转上。然而，在过去的几十年里，研究人员已经开始研究其他类别的心理旋转，包括身体部位和自己身体的心理旋转。研究人员还开始使用神经成像技术来探索这些不同的精神转变是否受到独特的神经机制的影响。认知神经科学文献中的一个有争议的发现是，一些类别的心理旋转被证明可以激活大脑的额叶运动区，而另一些类别则没有。例如，研究人员在一些想象中的物体旋转任务中发现了初级运动皮质和运动前激活，这可能是因为这样的任务允许人们预测如果他们操纵了物理物体会看到什么。相比之下，身体的心理旋转任务被证明不会在额叶运动区引起激活，尽管它与身体运动有明确的联系。在国家科学基金会的支持下，Maryjane Wraga博士的研究聚焦于这个问题，他通过检查运动处理在比以前研究过的更广泛的心理旋转任务中所起的作用来研究这个问题。这项研究将使用功能磁共振成像(FMRI)进行，这将允许直接比较实验条件下特定的大脑感兴趣区域。这个项目的更广泛的影响是为史密斯学院的本科生女性提供参与认知神经科学领域的机会。学生将在功能磁共振实验的各个方面获得实践经验，从设计和编程研究，到运行功能磁共振扫描仪的参与者，再到分析和解释结果。这种机会将促进认知神经科学领域中代表性不足的群体--妇女--的参与。

Mental rotation enables one to participate in a variety of spatial reasoning tasks, from solving geometry problems to reading maps to learning how to dance. Much of the empirical work in the field has focused on mental rotation of objects. However, within the last few decades, researchers have begun to examine other classes of mental rotation, including mental rotation of body parts and of one's own body. Researchers also have begun using neuroimaging techniques to explore whether these different mental transformations are subserved by unique neural mechanisms. One contentious finding within the cognitive neuroscience literature is that some classes of mental rotation have been shown to activate frontal motor areas of the brain, while others have not. For example, researchers have found primary motor cortex and premotor activation in some imagined object rotation tasks, presumably because such tasks allow people to anticipate what they would see if they had manipulated a physical object. In contrast, the task of mental rotation of one's body has been shown to elicit no activation in frontal motor areas, despite its explicit link to body movement. With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Maryjane Wraga's research focuses on this question this by examining the role of motor processing within a wider range of mental rotation tasks than previously has been studied. The research will be conducted using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which will allow for direct comparisons of specific brain regions of interest across experimental conditions. The broader impacts of this project are to provide opportunities for undergraduate women at Smith College to become involved in the field of cognitive neuroscience. Students will gain hands-on experience in every aspect of fMRI experimentation, from designing and programming studies, to running participants in the fMRI scanner, to analyzing and interpreting results. Such opportunities will facilitate participation of an underrepresented group, women, within the field of cognitive neuroscience.