Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

This article describes data related to the research study entitled "The neural correlate of gait improvement by rhythmic sound stimulation in adults with Parkinson's disease - A functional magnetic resonance imaging study" [1]. We evaluated gait performance using the 10-meter walk test (10MWT) in adults with Parkinson's disease (PD) and age-matched healthy controls (HC). Gait speed (GS) and step length (SL) were calculated from the results of the 10MWT. We also evaluated neural activities in regions that were significantly activated by gait imagery in adults with PD using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The correlation among GS, SL, and activation of blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signals by gait imagery in adults with PD. Both GS and SL were smaller in adults with PD than in HCs. The left parietal operculum (PO), left supplementary motor area (SMA), and right cerebellum were activated by gait imagery in adults with PD. No significant correlation was found in any pair of gait performance and neural activation of such regions. This data set could be reused for studies to investigate the relationship between gait performance and neural activities in adults with PD.

DOI： 10.1016/j.dib.2021.106993

Language：Others   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

DOI： 10.1016/j.parkreldis.2021.02.010

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

Introduction Subliminal affective priming effects (SAPEs) refer to the phenomenon by which the presentation of an affective prime stimulus influences the subsequent affective evaluation of a target stimulus. Previous studies have reported that unconsciously processed stimuli affect behavioral performance more than consciously processed stimuli. However, the impact of SAPEs on the face-specific N170 component is unclear. We studied how SAPEs for fearful faces affected the N170 for subsequent supraliminal target faces using event-related potentials (ERPs).Methods Japanese adults (n = 44, 20 females) participated in this study. Subliminal prime faces (neutral or fearful) were presented for 17 ms, followed by a backward mask for 283 ms and 800 ms target faces (neutral, emotionally ambiguous, or fearful). 128-channel ERPs were recorded while participants judged the expression of target faces as neutral or fearful. Response rates and response times were also measured for assessing behavioral alterations.Results Although the behavioral results revealed no evidence of SAPEs, we found gender-related SAPEs in right N170 amplitude. Specifically, female participants exhibited enhanced right N170 amplitude for emotionally neutral faces primed by fearful faces, while male participants exhibited decreased N170 amplitude in fearful prime trials with fearful target faces. Male participants exhibited significant correlations between N170 amplitude and behavioral response time in the fearful prime-neutral target condition.Conclusions Our ERP results suggest the existence of a gender difference in target-face processing preceded by subliminally presented face stimuli in the right occipito-temporal region.

DOI： 10.1002/brb3.2060

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

The adult human brain appears to have specialized and independent neural systems for the visual processing of faces and words: greater selectivity for faces in the right hemisphere (RH) while greater selectivity for words in the left hemisphere (LH). Nevertheless, the nature of functional differences between the hemispheres is still largely unknown. To elucidate the hemispheric specialization for face and word recognition, event-related magnetic fields (ERFs) were recorded in young adults while they passively viewed faces and words presented either in the right visual field or in the left visual field. If the neural correlates of face recognition and word recognition reflect the same lateralization profile, then the lateralization of the magnetic source of the M170 component should follow a similar profile, with a greater M170 response for faces in the RH and a greater M170 response for words in the LH. We observed the expected finding of a larger M170 in the LH for words. Unexpectedly, a larger M170 response in the RH for faces was not found. Thus, the hemispheric organization of face recognition is different from that of word recognition in terms of specificity.

DOI： 10.1016/j.neures.2019.11.006

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

INTRODUCTION: The right fusiform face area (FFA) is important for face recognition, whereas the left visual word fusiform area (VWFA) is critical for word processing. Nevertheless, the early stages of unconscious and conscious face and word processing have not been studied systematically. MATERIALS AND METHODS: To explore hemispheric differences for face and word recognition, we manipulated the visual field (left vs. right) and stimulus duration (subliminal [17 ms] versus supraliminal [300 ms]). We recorded P100 and N170 peaks with high-density ERPs in response to faces/objects or Japanese words/scrambled words in 18 healthy young subjects. RESULTS: Contralateral P100 was larger than ipsilateral P100 for all stimulus types in the supraliminal, but not subliminal condition. The face- and word-N170s were not evoked in the subliminal condition. The N170 amplitude for the supraliminal face stimuli was significantly larger than that for the objects, and right hemispheric specialization was found for face recognition, irrespective of stimulus visual hemifield. Conversely, the supraliminal word-N170 amplitude was not significantly modulated by stimulus type, visual field, or hemisphere. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that visual awareness is crucial for face and word recognition. Our study using hemifield stimulus presentation further demonstrates the robust right FFA for face recognition but not the left VWFA for word recognition in the Japanese brain.

DOI： 10.1002/brb3.1649

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

The relationship between facial identity and facial expression processing has long been debated. Although previous facial recognition models indicate that facial identity and facial expression processing are independent, psychological studies using the selective attention task (the Garner paradigm) have revealed an asymmetrical relationship between the perception of identity and emotional expressions in faces: while facial expression does not influence facial identity recognition, facial identity influences facial expression recognition. We used the Garner paradigm and recorded high-density event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the influence of facial identity on facial expression recognition. Twenty participants judged the expression of faces, while the irrelevant dimension of identity was either held constant (control condition) or varied (orthogonal condition). We recorded 128-channel EEGs while participants completed the facial expression task. We analyzed the two major components of early visual stages: P1 and N170. ERP results revealed a significant main effect of condition on the N170 latency. These results suggest that facial identity influences facial expression recognition in the N170 that reflects the structural encoding of faces. Thus, information on facial expression might be computed based on the unique structure of individual faces.

DOI： 10.1016/j.neulet.2020.134911

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

Background: Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) can entrain and enhance cortical oscillatory activity in a frequency-dependent manner. In our previous study (Nakazono et al., 2016), 20 Hz (beta) tACS significantly increased excitability of primary motor cortex compared with 10 Hz (alpha) tACS. alpha oscillations are a prominent feature of the primary visual cortex (V1) in a resting electroencephalogram. Hence, we investigated whether alpha and beta tACS can differentially influence multiple visual functions.Methods: Firstly, we evaluated the after-effects of alpha and beta tACS on pattern-reversal (PR) and focal-flash (FF) visual evoked potentials (VEPs). Secondly, we determined the relationship between resting alpha oscillations and PR-VEPs modulated by tACS. Thirdly, the behavioral effects of tACS were assessed by contrast sensitivity.Results: alpha tACS modulated the amplitudes of PR-VEPs, compared with beta tACS, but did not modulate the FF-VEPs. Time-frequency analysis revealed that alpha tACS facilitated event-related alpha phase synchronizations without increasing power, which consequently increased the PR-VEP amplitudes. There was a significant positive correlation between PR-VEP amplitudes and resting alpha oscillations. These findings suggested that alpha tACS modulated alpha oscillations, and affected visual functions of contrast and spatial frequency. Indeed, alpha tACS also improved subjects' contrast sensitivity at the behavioral level. Conversely, beta tACS increased posterior alpha activity, but did not change VEP amplitudes.Conclusions: alpha tACS can influence different neuronal populations from those influenced by beta tACS. Thus, our results provide evidence that alpha tACS sharpens multiple visual functions by modulating alpha oscillations in V1. (C) 2019 Elsevier Inc.

DOI： 10.1016/j.brs.2019.10.022

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

Unilateral spatial neglect (USN) can be defined as a failure to orient to contra-lesional stimuli in the absence of either sensory or motor defects. Although the behavioral and clinical effects of prism adaptation (PA) are widely accepted, its underlying mechanisms are still controversial. However, recent neuroimaging and neurophysiological studies support the idea that PA affects the visual attention and sensorimotor networks including in the parietal cortex and cerebellum. We investigate the effect of PA on functional connectivity (FC) in attention and sensorimotor networks, evaluating changes of resting-state FC before and after PA in healthy individuals using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). MR sessions were conducted before PA, after PA (Post1), and 1 h after PA (Post2). The FC between the right frontal eye (FEF) field and the right intraparietal sulcus was significantly decreased at Post1 and that between the right FEF and the right anterior cingulate cortex was significantly increased after PA and recovered within 1 h. This is the first study to demonstrate transient changes of resting-state FC in the right dorsal attention network (DAN) by PA in healthy adults using fMRI. These results will contribute to the elucidation of the underling mechanism of PA therapy and to devising new therapies for USN and/or other higher cortical dysfunctions.

DOI： 10.1016/j.cortex.2018.10.018

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

It has been reported that it is possible to observe transient changes in resting-state functional connectivity (FC) in the attention networks of healthy adults during treatment with prism adaptation. by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) (see "Prism adaptation changes resting-state functional connectivity in the dorsal stream of visual attention networks in healthy adults: A fMRI study" (Tsujimoto et al., 2018) [1]. Recent neuroimaging and neurophysiological studies support the idea that prism adaptation (PA) affects the visual attention and sensorimotor networks, which include the parietal cortex and cerebellum. These data demonstrate the effect of PA on resting-state functional connectivity between the primary motor cortex and cerebellum. Additionally, it evaluates changes of resting-state FC before and after PA in healthy individuals using fMRI. Analyses focus on FC between the primary motor cortex and cerebellum, and the correlation between changes in FC and its after-effects following a single PA session. Here, we show data that demonstrate the change in resting-state FC between the primary motor cortex and cerebellum, as well as a correlation between the change ratio of FC and the amplitude of the after-effect.

DOI： 10.1016/j.dib.2018.12.053

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

Face identification and categorization are essential for social communication. The N170 event-related potential (ERP) is considered to be a biomarker of face perception. To elucidate the neural basis of species-dependent face processing, we recorded 128-ch high-density ERPs in 14 healthy adults while they viewed the images of morphed faces. The morphed stimuli contained different proportions of human and monkey faces, and the species boundary was shifted away from the center of the morph continuum. Three experiments were performed to determine how task requirement, facial orientation, and spatial frequency (SF) of visual stimuli affected ERPs. In an equal SF condition, the latency, and amplitude of the occipital P100 for upright faces were modulated in a monotonic-like fashion by the level of morphing. In contrast, the N170 latency for upright faces was modulated in a step-like fashion, showing a flexion point that may reflect species discrimination. Although N170 amplitudes for upright faces were not modulated by morph level, they were modulated in a monotonic-like fashion by inverted faces. The late positive (LP) component (350-550 msec) in the parietal region was modulated in a U-shaped function by morph level during a categorization task, but not in a simple reaction task. These results suggest that P100 reflects changes in the physical properties of faces and that N170 is involved in own-species selectivity. The LP component seems to represent species categorization that occurs 350 msec after stimulus onset.

DOI： 10.14814/phy2.12387

Event date： 2019.11

Language：Japanese  

Venue：ザ・セレクトン福島／コラッセふくしま   Country：Japan  

Event date： 2023.8

Language：English   Presentation type：Symposium, workshop panel (public)  

Venue：仙台国際センター   Country：Japan  

Event date： 2021.12

Language：Japanese  

Venue：仙台   Country：Japan  

Event date： 2020.6

Language：Japanese  

Venue：横浜   Country：Japan  

Language：Japanese  

ポータブル神経反応計測装置の開発