Spatio-temporal cortical activity patterns in cognitive tasks using fMRI

摘要

In this study we investigate the spatio-temporal organization of the human cortical activity in complex tasks. Such complex interactions are crucial, for instance, in the case of voluntary actions, memory and are probably impaired in neurological disorders (e.g. epilepsy) or psychiatric disorders (e.g. schizophrenia). The aim of the performed fMRI experiments was to evaluate multiple cortical areas involved in verbal output and input during two different covert language tasks, namely "verbal fluency' and "verbal understanding". We discuss the relevance of such data for a theory of cortex dynamics which emphasizes the role of long-range lateral connections. The future experimental investigation will be aimed at the analysis of the spatio-temporal structure of cortical activity in pathological conditions, such as epilepsy.