“Technology for computational modeling that connects behavior and brain neural activity”

Musculoskeletal system model is the basis of the body movement, and is intended to connect the behavior and neural activity. In order to understand the the functional shift of brain neural circuit for behavioral adaptation, this model plays crucial role for analyzing the behavioral and neural activities through the dynamics of the body. In this study, a mathematical model analysis technique is applied to learning process, including the recovery from the damage of neural circuit.

The brain allows for skillful manipulation of the body to interact with the external environment. This sophisticated and flexible operation involves transformations between coordinate frames of the internal body and external environment, possibly computed in distributed brain regions. The intrinsic coordinate frame is body- and/or muscle-centered, whereas the extrinsic coordinate frame refers to points outside the body. However, it is still unclear how these two coordinate frames are represented in the brain. Extensive studies using monkeys have shown that the primary motor cortex and the premotor cortex are important in coding coordinate frames. The supplementary motor area is also included in the medial portion of premotor cortex. To our knowledge, no previous studies have examined the neural representation of distinct coordinate frames in SMA. We have been developing a novel approach for analyzing the representation of the motor control and planning using EEG and fMRI. Non-inva
sive method can be applied to human behavioral analysis.

 
Recent Publications
1. Natsue Yoshimura, Koji Jimura, DaSalla Charles S., Duk Shin, Hiroyuki Kambara, Takashi Hanakawa, Yasuharu Koike. Dissociable neural representations of wrist motor coordinate frames in human motor cortices, NeuroImage, Vol. 97, pp. 53-61, Apr. 2014.
2. Hiroyuki Kambara, Duk Shin, Yasuharu Koike. A computational model for optimal muscle activity considering muscle viscoelasticity in wrist movements, Journal of Neurophysiology, Vol. 109, No. 8, pp. 2145-2160, Apr. 2013.
3. Natsue Yoshimura, Charles S. DaSalla, Takashi Hanakawa, Masa-aki Sato, Yasuharu Koike. Reconstruction of flexor and extensor muscle activities from electroencephalography cortical currents, Neuroimage, Elsevier, Vol. 59, No. 2, pp. 1324-1337, Jan. 2012.

Posted:2016/02/24