ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to establish a robust set of motor tasks that could be used to functionally delineate the motor cortex with blood oxygenation level dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging (BOLD fMRI) at 3 T and produce precise functional maps for pre-operative planning and functional neuronavigation. METHOD: Twelve male and four female control subjects were recruited for this study which examined six different motor tasks. Finger-, tongue-, lip- and toe-movements, as well as isometric upper arm- and thigh-contraction tasks were conducted during separate scans on a 3 T MRI scanner. Furthermore, patients that previously had undergone similar motor tasks were reviewed, to evaluate whether this set of tasks was able to be adopted for use in a population of patients with brain lesions. RESULTS: The results of this study indicated that the finger-, toe- and tongue-motor tasks were the most robust in identifying their respective primary motor area. Moreover, all three tasks activated regions at regular intervals along the convexity of the hemisphere, making it possible to functionally delineate the primary motor cortex in both healthy subjects and patients. DISCUSSION: The motor tasks described in this study (toe, finger and tongue) were effective at localizing the primary motor cortex for the purposes of neurosurgical planning. These three tasks produced the highest success rate and resulted in activations at regular intervals along the convexity of the hemisphere, allowing the delineation of the entire motor strip even in the presence of edema and anatomical distortions.
Subject(s)
Brain Injuries/physiopathology , Magnetic Resonance Imaging/methods , Motor Cortex/physiopathology , Motor Skills/physiology , Adult , Arm/innervation , Arm/physiology , Brain Injuries/pathology , Brain Mapping/methods , Female , Fingers/innervation , Fingers/physiology , Functional Laterality/physiology , Humans , Image Processing, Computer-Assisted/methods , Lip/innervation , Lip/physiology , Male , Monitoring, Intraoperative/methods , Motor Cortex/physiology , Neuronavigation/methods , Thigh/innervation , Thigh/physiology , Toes/innervation , Toes/physiology , Tongue/innervation , Tongue/physiology , Young AdultABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To develop and test a novel fMRI compatible comprehensive and expressive language task that reliably and predictably activates both Wernicke's and Broca's cortical brain regions, respectively, and has utility for the determination of hemispheric language dominance. METHODS: Ten healthy men (seven) and women (three) were administered a task based on the television game Jeopardy that was adapted for fMRI presentation. The task was programmed using E-PRIME software and designed to run as an event-related experiment. The study was conducted on 3 T MRI Phillips Intera scanner, and data was anlysed using Brain Voyager QX. All subjects provided written informed consent. RESULTS: The Jeopardy task produced robust left hemisphere activation in regions corresponding to Wernicke's and Broca's areas. CONCLUSION: This novel fMRI compatible task (Jeopardy) reliably maps both Broca's and Wernicke's areas with robust hemispheric lateralization. It is potentially useful in language localization studies as it offers advantages over conventional procedures and other fMRI tasks by virtue of being non-invasive and mapping both language areas in one experiment.
