Neurofeedback functional MRI

描述（由申请人提供）：拟议研究的目的是开发和实施一种功能磁共振成像方法，该方法能够将解剖学上特定的大脑活动信息作为生物反馈近实时地传递给受试者，从而实现神经反馈。受试者在自己的皮层活动信息的指导下，随后学习获得一定水平的自愿控制，使用认知功能（如注意力和意象）调节听觉和躯体运动区的大脑活动。 本研究的主要假设是，听觉刺激的注意水平和运动想象的内容可以由被试自愿控制，从而调节听觉和躯体运动区的活动，其特征在于fMRI。第二个假设是，与没有神经反馈的受试者相比，区域特定脑功能的生物反馈将帮助受试者实现更大程度的调节。第三个假设是，在没有额外的神经反馈的情况下，受试者可以通过心理练习保留或进一步增强从最初的神经反馈会话中学到的皮层调制程度。 我们将实施一种功能磁共振成像方法来量化大脑激活，描绘目标大脑感兴趣的区域，并使大脑活动的定量尺度以图形/听觉信息的形式反馈给受试者。MR参数和任务范例将通过使用听觉注意任务在20名志愿受试者上实施、测试和修改实验周期来优化。 完成后，我们将应用神经反馈功能磁共振成像方法进行听觉注意和运动想象任务的15名健康志愿者。我们将通过对传入刺激分配不同程度的注意力/注意力分散来调节受试者的大脑活动，即在被动听觉刺激期间，在初级和次级听觉区域中激活和/或血氧水平依赖性信号对比度的增加/减少。在躯体运动区的活动将调制使用运动想象。神经反馈方法的有效性将通过比较功能性脑映射数据与从人口统计学上匹配的受试者获得的数据进行检查，这些受试者在没有神经反馈指导的情况下执行任务。我们还将研究是否可以通过执行第二次fMR/会话来巩固和保留从神经反馈程序中获得的调节程度，以测量从初始神经反馈会话中学习到的调节变化程度。

DESCRIPTION (PROVIDED BY APPLICANT): The objective of the proposed research is to develop and implement an fMRI method capable of delivering information on anatomically specific brain activities back to a subject in near real-time as biofeedback, thus enabling neurofeedback. Guided by the information on their own cortical activities, the subjects subsequently learn to gain a level of voluntary control in modulating brain activities of auditory and somatomotor areas using cognitive functions such as attention and imagery. The main hypothesis of this study is that the level of attention to auditory stimulation and the content of motor imagery can be voluntarily controlled by the subjects, thus modulating the activities in auditory and somatomotor areas that are characterized by fMRI. The secondary hypothesis is that biofeedback of regionally specific brain function will assist subjects to achieve a greater degree of modulation compared to subjects without neurofeedback. The tertiary hypothesis is that subjects can retain or further enhance the degree of cortical modulation learned from the initial neurofeedback sessions by mental practice in the absence of additional neurofeedback. We will implement an fMRI method to quantify brain activation, delineate the targeted brain areas-of-interest, and enable quantitative scales of brain activities to be fed back to the subjects in the form of graphical/auditory information. The MR parameters and task paradigm will be optimized by implementing, testing, and modifying the cycle of the experiment on 20 volunteer subjects using an auditory attention task. Upon the completion of implementation, we will apply the neurofeedback fMRI method to 15 healthy volunteer subjects undergoing auditory attention and motor imagery tasks. We will modulate subjects' brain activities, in terms of an increase/decrease in the size of activation and/or blood-oxygenation-level-dependent signal contrast, in primary and secondary auditory areas during passive auditory stimulation by assigning different degrees of attention/distraction to incoming stimuli. The activities in somatomotor areas will be modulated using motor imagery. The efficacy of the neurofeedback approach will be examined by comparing the functional brain mapping data to that obtained from demographically matched subjects who perform the task without the guidance of neurofeedback. We will also examine whether the degree of modulation achieved from the neurofeedback procedures can be consolidated and retained over time by performing the second fMR/session to measure the degree of modulatory changes learned from the initial neurofeedback sessions.