Changes in the BOLD signal of S1 and BA3 per finger/phalanx as a response to high-frequency vibratory stimulation

Abstract

Purpose and Method

The purpose of this study was to determine the changes in the Blood Oxygen Level Dependent signal of Primary somatosensory area (S1) and Brodmann area 3 (BA3) per finger and phalanx in comparison to the activation voxel when 250 Hz vibratory stimulation with high sensitivity for the Pacinian corpuscle was given to the four fingers and three phalanges.

Results

The result of analyzing the activation voxel showed a significant difference for S1 per finger and phalanx, but for BA3, no significant difference was observed despite a similar trend to S1. In contrast, the activation intensity (BOLD) displayed a significant difference for S1 per finger and phalanx and for BA3, where the activation voxel had no significant variation. In addition, while the result of S1 did not indicate whether the index or the little fingers had the highest sensitivity based on the BOLD signal per finger, the result of BA3 marked the strongest BOLD signal for the little finger as a response to 250 Hz vibratory stimulation. The activation intensity per phalanx was the highest for the intermediate phalanx for S1 and BA3, which was in line with a previous study comparing the activation voxel.

Conclusions

The method based on the intensity of the nerve activation is presumed to have high sensitivity as the signal intensity is monitored within a specific, defined area. Thus, for the extraction of brain activation patterns of micro-domains, such as BA3, monitoring the BOLD signal that reflects the nerve activation intensity more sensitively is likely to be advantageous.

Keywords:

• Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
• blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD)
• Brodmann area 3
• primary somatosensory area
• finger/phalanx

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The datasets generated for this study are available on request to the corresponding author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a Mid-career Researcher Program Grant through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), funded by the Ministry of Education (MOE) (No. NRF-2021R1A2C2009136) and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea Government (MSIT) (No. 2020R1A2C1100349).