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

心理旋转使人们能够参与各种空间推理活动，从解决几何问题到阅读地图，再到学习如何跳舞。在认知心理学领域，心理旋转的实证研究主要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型的心理旋转，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类型的心理转变是否由独特的神经机制支持。认知神经科学文献中一个有争议的发现是，某些类别的心理旋转已经被证明可以激活大脑的低级运动区域，而其他则没有。例如，研究人员发现，在一些想象的物体旋转任务中，初级运动区和前运动区被激活，这可能是因为这些任务允许人们预测如果他们操纵一个物理物体，他们会看到什么。相比之下，尽管它与身体运动有明显的联系，但一个人自己身体的心理旋转任务已被证明不会引起低水平的运动激活。在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，Maryjane Wraga博士的研究通过在比以前研究的更广泛的心理旋转任务中检查运动处理来关注这些问题。这项研究正在使用与事件相关的功能性磁共振成像（fMRI）进行，这将允许在实验条件下直接比较特定的大脑区域。这个项目的更广泛的影响是对广泛使用的心理旋转技能背后的神经过程有了更深入的了解。该项目将为史密斯学院的女本科生提供参与认知神经科学领域的机会。学生将获得在fMRI实验的各个方面的实践经验，从设计和编程研究，运行在fMRI扫描仪的参与者，分析和解释结果。 这样的机会将促进认知神经科学领域内代表性不足的群体的参与。

Mental rotation enables participation in a variety of spatial reasoning activities, from solving geometry problems to reading maps to learning how to dance. Much of the empirical work on mental rotation in the field of cognitive psychology 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 one's own body. Researchers also have begun using neuroimaging techniques to explore whether these different classes of mental transformations are supported by unique neural mechanisms. One contentious finding within the cognitive neuroscience literature is that some classes of mental rotation have been shown to activate low-level motor areas of the brain, while others have not. For example, researchers have found activation in primary motor and premotor regions 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, despite its obvious link to body movement, the task of mental rotation of one's own body has been shown to elicit no low-level motor activation. With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Maryjane Wraga's research focuses on these questions by examining the motor processing within a wider range of mental rotation tasks than previously has been studied. The research is being conducted using event-related 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 a greater understanding of the neural processes underlying the widely used skill of mental rotation. The project will 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 within the field of cognitive neuroscience.