Study on the effect of mastication on memories and leaning-A possibility of trigger factor of dementia-

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Recently, some researchers have reported the possibility that impairment of ability for mastication was one of the trigger factors of dementia. There are, however, only a few studies on the relationship between mastication and cognitive function. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between mastication and hemodynamics, which is the first step toward our health care and the prevention of some neurological diseases.First, for selective monitoring of the cerebral perfusion, we studied some characteristics of optical signals measured from the human head by near-infrared spectroscopy(NIRS), which has some advantages over other methods in terms of, for example, the measurement under sitting on the seat. We clarified the usefulness and limitations of the NIRS(time-resolved spectroscopic method) for monitoring of cerebral hemodynamics.Next, we examined Hb concentration changes evoked by chewing and cognitive tasks using NIRS By chewing, oxy-Hb increased in the temporal area(Brodmann's Area 9 and 46) and decreased in the region of parietal By doing verbal fluency task, decreases of oxy-Hb in the regions of the frontal and parietal were observed. We can suppose that there is a similarity of activation area between the two tasks.