Takashi Hanakawa

Imagining motor acts is a cognitive task that engages parts of the executive motor system. While motor imagery has been intensively studied using neuroimaging techniques, most studies lack behavioral observations. Here, we used functional MRI to compare the functional neuroanatomy of motor execution and imagery using a task that objectively assesses imagery performance. With surface electromyographic monitoring within a scanner, 10 healthy subjects performed sequential finger-tapping movements a

Activation of motor-related areas has consistently been found during various motor imagery tasks and is regarded as the central mechanism generating motor imagery. However, the extent to which motor execution and imagery share neural substrates remains controversial. We examined brain activity during preparation for and execution of physical or mental finger tapping. During a functional magnetic resonance imaging at 3 T, 13 healthy volunteers performed an instructed delay finger-tapping task eit

There has been an explosion of research using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) for investigating and modulating human cognitive and motor function in healthy populations. It has also been used in many studies seeking to improve deficits in disease populations. With the slew of studies reporting "promising results" for everything from motor recovery after stroke to boosting memory function, one could be easily seduced by the idea of tDCS being the next panacea for all neurological i

Single photon emission computed tomography was used to evaluate regional cerebral blood flow changes during gait on a treadmill in 10 patients with Parkinson's disease and 10 age-matched controls. The subjects were injected with [99mTc]hexamethyl-propyleneamine oxime twice: while walking on the treadmill, which moved at a steady speed, and while lying on a bed with their eyes open. On the treadmill, all subjects walked at the same speed with their preferred stride length. The patients showed typ

Recent evidence indicates that classical 'motor' areas may also have cognitive functions. We performed three neuroimaging experiments to investigate the functional neuroanatomy underlying three types of nonmotor mental-operation tasks: numerical, verbal, and spatial. (i) Positron emission tomography showed that parts of the posterior frontal cortex, which are consistent with the pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA) and the rostral part of the dorsolateral premotor cortex (PMdr), were active du

Parkinson's disease (PD) patients often show marked improvement of hypokinetic gait when exposed to special stimuli. To investigate physiological mechanisms underlying this "paradoxical gait" induced by visual cues in PD patients, we examined regional cerebral blood flow changes during gait on a treadmill guided by two different visual cues, the lines oriented transversely to the direction of walk (TL) and the lines parallel to it (PL). Ten PD patients and 10 age-matched controls received inject

Over the last few decades, motor imagery has attracted the attention of researchers as a prototypical example of 'embodied cognition' and also as a basis for neuro-rehabilitation and brain-machine interfaces. The current definition of motor imagery is widely accepted, but it is important to note that various abilities rather than a single cognitive entity are dealt with under a single term. Here, motor imagery has been characterized based on four factors: (1) motor control, (2) explicitness, (3)

Several human neuroimaging studies have reported activity in the precentral gyrus (PcG) ipsilateral to the side of hand movements. This activity has been interpreted as the part of the primary motor cortex (M1) that controls bilateral or ipsilateral hand movements. To better understand hand ipsilateral-PcG activity, we performed a functional MRI experiment in eight healthy right-handed adults. Behavioral tasks involved hand or lower face movements on each side or motor imagery of the same moveme