Can NIRS signals explain brain activities during motor learning?

最近对人类运动功能和学习的fMRI研究报告称，在任务表现没有改善的情况下，大脑活动的幅度涉及重复任务的减少趋势，这可能表明习惯化的影响。在这里，我们表明，类似的效应也可以通过近红外光谱检测到。在实验中，在重复的会话中，监测了手指轻击任务中氧合血红蛋白(HBO)的变化。结果显示，任务相关的大脑活动在运动相关区域呈现下降趋势。这些表明，近红外光谱的测量可能显示出大脑诱导的趋势，而不是重复简单的运动任务。

Recent fMRI studies of human motor function and learning have reported that the magnitude of brain activity involves a decreasing trend over repeated tasks in the absence of improvements in task performance, probably suggesting the effect of habituation. Here we show that similar effect can be detected by NIRS. In experiments, oxygenated hemoglobin(HbO) changes were monitored during a finger tapping task over repeated sessions. Results showed that task-related brain activity exhibited a decreasing trend on motor-related areas over the sessions. These suggest that measurements of NIRS may exhibit the brain-induced trends over repetition of simple motor tasks.