Neural correlates of imagined and synaesthetic colours.

The experience of colour is a core element of human vision. Colours provide important symbolic and contextual information not conveyed by form alone. Moreover, the experience of colour can arise without external stimulation.

Mathematically gifted male adolescents activate a unique brain network during mental rotation.

Mental rotation involves the creation and manipulation of internal images, with the later being particularly useful cognitive capacities when applied to high-level mathematical thinking and reasoning. Many neuroimaging studies have demonstrated mental rotation to be mediated primarily by the parietal lobes, particularly on the right side. Here, we use fMRI to show for the first time that when performing 3-dimensional mental rotations, mathematically gifted male adolescents engage a qualitatively different brain network than those of average math ability, one that involves bilateral activation of the parietal lobes and frontal cortex, along with heightened activation of the anterior cingulate.

Digit representation is more than just hand waving.

Lip-reading and interpreting hand gestures help provide nonverbal information that aids speech comprehension in noisy environments and places emphasis on certain key utterances. In this fMRI study, we examined if viewing the similar semantic information presented by either finger movements or lip movements was processed by common or discrete brain regions. Subjects viewed videos of a hand conveying number information via finger movements and a face whose lip movements conveyed the same numerical information.

Viewing the motion of human body parts activates different regions of premotor, temporal, and parietal cortex.

Activation of premotor and temporoparietal cortex occurs when we observe others movements, particularly relating to objects. Viewing the motion of different body parts without the context of an object has not been systematically evaluated. During a 3T fMRI study, 12 healthy subjects viewed human face, hand, and leg motion, which was not directed at or did not involve an object.

Increased anterior temporal lobe T2 times in cases of hippocampal sclerosis: a multi-echo T2 relaxometry study at 3 T.

Background And Purpose: Increased T2 relaxation times in the ipsilateral hippocampus are present in patients with hippocampal sclerosis. Visual assessment of T2-weighted images of these patients suggests increased signal intensity in the anterior temporal lobe as well. Our aim was to assess hippocampal and anterior temporal T2 relaxation times in patients with partial epilepsy by using a new T2-relaxometry sequence implemented by using a 3-T General Electric imaging unit.

The functional magnetic resonance imaging hemodynamic response to faces remains stable until the ninth decade.

The effects of aging on blood oxygen level dependent signal changes and the hemodynamic response (HDR) remain controversial. Using functional magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, we examined the HDR properties and activated voxel counts in striate and extrastriate cortex in 18 healthy elderly subjects in response to a simple visual paradigm. Subjects of equal number and gender were prospectively separated into groups from the seventh, eighth, and ninth decades.

The human temporal lobe integrates facial form and motion: evidence from fMRI and ERP studies.

Physiological studies in humans and monkeys indicate that the posterior temporal cortex is active when viewing the movements of others. Here we tested the premise that this region integrates form and motion information by presenting both natural and line-drawn displays of moving faces and motion controls where motion was continuously presented in the same part of the visual field. The cortex in and near the STS and on the fusiform gyrus (FG) responded to both types of face stimuli, but not to the controls, in a functional magnetic resonance imaging study in 10 normal subjects.

Myoinositol abnormalities in temporal lobe epilepsy.

Purpose: This study used magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) to examine metabolite abnormalities in the temporal and frontal lobe of patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) of differing severity.

Methods: We investigated myoinositol in TLE by using short-echo MRS in 34 TLE patients [26 late onset (LO-TLE), eight hippocampal sclerosis (HS-TLE)], and 16 controls. Single-voxel short-echo (35 ms) MR spectra of temporal and frontal lobes were acquired at 1.

Benign epilepsy with centro-temporal spikes: spike triggered fMRI shows somato-sensory cortex activity.

Objective: We performed spike triggered functional MRI (fMRI) in a 12 year old girl with Benign Epilepsy with Centro-temporal Spikes (BECTS) and left-sided spikes. Our aim was to demonstrate the cerebral origin of her interictal spikes.

Methods: EEG was recorded within the 3 Tesla MRI.

Quality assurance and radiofrequency heating.

This paper proposes an inexpensive means of assessing radiofrequency (RF) power deposition in a magnet. This is particularly important at 3T where sequences approach Food and Drug Administration approved RF limits. It will also be of interest to operators at 1.

A sheep model for the study of focal epilepsy with concurrent intracranial EEG and functional MRI.

Purpose: We describe a sheep model of penicillin-induced seizure activity using electroencephalography (EEG) and functional MRI (fMRI).

Methods: Ten adult sheep were used. Spikes and seizures were generated by instillation of 8,000-10,000 IU of penicillin into the right prefrontal cortex via a specially designed port.

Mixed lateralization of phonological assembly in developmental dyslexia.

Developmental phonological dyslexia has been characterized as a deficit in phonological assembly. At a neural level, it is possible that this deficit is represented by weak connectivity between anterior and posterior language systems in the left hemisphere. This study used 3-Tesla functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate phonological assembly in a developmental phonological dyslexic.

Seizure-associated hippocampal volume loss: a longitudinal magnetic resonance study of temporal lobe epilepsy.

This longitudinal quantitative magnetic resonance imaging study of 24 patients with mild temporal lobe epilepsy shows an ipsilateral hippocampal volume decrease of 9% (range, -30 to +0.5%; p = 0.002, paired t test) over a period of 3.