8th International Conference on
Functional Mapping of the Human Brain
June 2 - 6,2002, Sendai, JAPAN
LOC Symposium Monday 3th June
Developing the Brain: An Approach toward Leaning and Educational Sciences by Functional Imaging
16:30-16:40
1. Hideaki Koizumi
The Scope of the Symposium 16:40-17:00
2. Robert Turner and Uta Frith
FMRI Studies of Learning and Development 17:00-17:20
3. Norihiro Sadato
Cross-modal Plasticity in the Deaf and Blind: Implications for Education 17:20-17:40
4. Britton Chance, Shoko Nioka, John Kounios
NIR Imaging of Prefrontal Activation in Problem Solutions
-Sudden Insight 17:40-18:00
5. Ryuta Kawashima
Neuroimaging Can Be Applied to Cognitive Rehabilitation
-Concepts and Clinical Implementations of Learning Therapy- The Scope of the Symposium Hideaki Koizumi Advanced Research Laboratory, Hitachi, Ltd. In cooperation with the University of Tokyo and the Japan Science and Technology Corporation Hatoyama, Saitama 350-0395, Japan
From a biological viewpoint, learning and education are closely related to brain development because the brain is an adaptable information processor open to the environment. Stimuli from the environment cause new neuronal connections to form which allow better adaptation to the environment. Learning is the process by which the brain reacts to stimuli by making neuronal connections that act as an information processing circuit and provide information storage. Education is a process that should guide and inspire the construction of the basic architecture of brain information processing by preparing and controlling the stimuli input to the brain.
Natural science offers new approach to the study of the mechanisms of learning and education. This approach has the potential to create better learning and educational systems. Because learning and education are closely related to the process of brain development, mind-brain science and developmental cognitive neuroscience will play an important role in future education.
In this symposium, we will discuss the potential role that an approach such as functional imaging should play in the study of learning and educational mechanisms. We will investigate the feasibility of formulating a comprehensive concept of education through the lifetime of a person, i.e., from birth (or even during the fetal stage) to death. This comprehensive concept should include childcare, rehabilitation, foreign-language education, and seniors¡Ç learning, as well as conventional school and university education. In the future, learning sciences based on non-invasive functional imaging might enable us to reconstruct conventional curriculums.
FMRI Studies of Learning and Development Robert Turner and Uta Frith Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience, Institute of Neurology, Queen Square; and Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, UK
Functional MRI methods now allow us to monitor the perceptual and cognitive activity of the human brain, with a temporal resolution of better than 1 second and spatial resolution of 2-3 mm. Because BOLD fMRI , using naturally occurring changes in the level of paramagnetic vascular deoxyhaemoglobin, is completely non-invasive, it is feasible to perform longitudinal studies on individual subjects, and thus to assess enduring changes in cortical organization resulting from brain development and learning.
Since the discovery of BOLD fMRI there have been few long-term studies in this area, although short-term learning and episodic memory have received much attention. The important studies will be summarized, and critical features of experimental design will be outlined. A new study of learning of musical notation will be described.
Such studies will clearly underly an understanding of the functional anatomy of developmental disorders, which could in turn throw light on normal brain development. As an example, autism will be considered, which may result from abnormal development of brain areas that can represent the beliefs and intentions of other humans. Recent advances in understanding this condition will be discussed, and their relevance to the normal social brain will be addressed. Imaging neuroscience studies related to autism will be described.
Finally, the possible implications of brain studies for education strategies will be outlined.
Cross-modal plasticity in the deaf and blind: implications for education Norihiro Sadato, MD, PhD National Institute for Physiological Sciences / The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, Okazaki, Japan
To provide skills for communication is one of the major goals of education, particularly for those with the sensory handicapped. The brain is a dynamically changing structure in relation to learning, alterations of the peripheral input or brain injury. Noninvasive neuroimaging techniques such as PET and functional MRI depicted functional reorganization due to early deaffentation. Studies of Braille reading by the blind revealed that the tactual information process is taken in the primary and association visual cortex. Functional MRI studies of sign languages showed that the sign activated the auditory cortex of the deaf. These studies may provide biological basis for training in the handicapped, and also shed lights on how the brain organizes itself to integrate multimodal sensory input for communication.
NIR Imaging of Prefrontal Activation in Problem Solutions -Sudden Insight Britton Chance, Shoko Nioka, John Kounios, Sagid, Connie MDRF/UPenn
In the course of numerous studies of the achievement of solutions to multi letter anagrams, it is found that the achievement of learning and correct problem solutions are marked by distinctive voxels in the prefrontal region (1,2). Analysis in the time domain show the moment of achievement of problem solution is marked by a fast large signal. This signal is associated with what the clinicians and the psychologists term as a ¡Èsudden insight¡É, a ¡Èeureka¡É or an ¡Èah-ha¡É response. This affords a marker of successful solution achievement and opens up opportunities for evaluating teaching/learning methods. At the same time provides the evaluation of deceit in anagram solutions and problem solutions where the ¡Èsudden insight¡É response is not expected in spite of a deceitful affirmative response on problem question and solution achievement. Thus the ¡Èsudden insight¡É response may also identify falsification.
The suitable apparatus for this is an NIR optical imager attached to the prefrontal region and recording images every second from 16 or more voxels. Sufficient data are acquired to provide for each voxel, a histogram display of the results of at least 100 tests. The imaged signal then consists of the magnitude of the histogram divided by the FWHM of the Gaussian fit to the histogram display for each voxel. These show the singular or ¡Èfruitful¡É voxels are few and give sharp images for successful solutions, while chaotic ,widely dispersed, smaller signals are observed if disattention is evoked by solutions already learned or when frustration is evoked by lack of success in problem solving. Thus a match between difficulty and ability seems to be clearly delineated by focal responses in the prefrontal region, while diffuse images are observed with the failures to succeed and dissattention. Statistical validity is based upon 3 years of study involving several thousand tests in which each voxel contains several hundred observations to ensure statistical significance.
References:
1. Chance, B., Anday, E., Nioka, S., Zhou, S., Long, H., Worden, K., Li, C., Turray, T., Ovetsky, Y., Pidikiti, D. and Thomas, R. (1998) A Novel Method for Fast Imaging of Brain Function, Non-Invasively, with Light. Optics Express 2:411-423. http://epubs.osa.org.opticsexpress
2. Chance, B. and Tamura, T. (1996) Spatial and Temporal Resolution of Frontal Cognitive Response using NIR Tomography. Intl. Symp Brain Mapping OISO ¡Ç96 (Sept. 13-15), Oiso, Japan, p.S-III-4.
Grants:
NS36633
N00421-00-C-0524
Neuroimaging Can Be Applied to Cognitive Rehabilitation - Concepts and Clinical Implementations of Learning Therapy - Ryuta Kawashima MD NICHe, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8579, JAPAN
In this symposium, we will introduce a new concept of rehabilitation for higher brain function, named a learning therapy, using fundamental learning of reading, writing and calculation. The idea of the learning therapy was derived from observations of physically and/or mentally challenged children as well as brain damaged patients who were enrolled in the basic learning centers. We found that their abilities for communication and independency have been improved during course of fundamental learning.
We, then, re-analyzed all brain imaging studies we have done, and found that reading written sentences aloud, hand writing, counting numbers, and simple arithmetic activate the bilateral prefrontal cortex of normal adults to the large extent compared with other rather difficult and/or complex cognitive tasks. From these results, we set up a hypothesis that fundamental learning of reading, writing and calculation would stimulate the prefrontal cortex and improve higher cognitive functions of damaged or developing brains.
Based on our hypothesis, we have created fundamental learning systems for aged peoples, and asked fifty aged subjects who have senile dementia to do mathematical problems and language problems for 20 min for every day. Preliminary results showed that the scores for the prefrontal functions and MMS are improved in more than 80% of the subjects, and may confirm our hypothesis.
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