Can NIRS signals explain brain activities during motor learning?

最近对人类运动功能和学习的功能磁共振成像研究表明，在任务表现没有改善的情况下，重复任务时大脑活动的幅度呈下降趋势，这可能表明了习惯化的影响。在这里，我们展示了类似的效果可以检测到近红外光谱。在实验中，氧合血红蛋白（HbO）的变化在手指敲打任务中被监测。结果显示，与任务相关的大脑活动在运动相关区域显示出下降趋势。这些结果表明，近红外光谱的测量结果可能显示出大脑在重复简单运动任务时产生的趋势。

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.