The Fmri-based Neural Activity

For a long time exploring human brain has been a goal for the humanbeings to pursuit. The rapid development of medical imaging technology, especially functional imaging technology makes the humanbeings increasingly close to this goal. Magnetic resonance imaging is a non-invasive technique to accurately study the human brain and is also important for medical diagnosis. With the basic research processing in human brain functional magnetic resonance imaging, the application of fMRI in cognitive neuroscience research has gradually increased. In our study, fMRI was mainly used to investigate the neural mechanism of decision-making under risk.The brain regions activated by sequential finger movements of different complexities were localized by measuring regional blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal intensity and volumes of activation using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Some studies have shown that sequential finger movements recruit discrete sets of brain areas with different functions. To investigate the differential characteristics of the functional connectivity of brain networks produced by sequential movements of different complexities, we compared the temporal cross-correlation coefficients of each pair of brain regions within related neural systems among 14 subjects. Experimental results generally indicated an increased functional connectivity in relative brain areas during the performance of heterogeneous (complex) sequential finger movements compared to repetitive (simple) sequential finger movements. This finding showed that these areas are more selectively related to sequence performance. The results provide quantitative support for using a graphic method to investigate the descending pathway through which information is transmitted within complex sequences. Our findings highlight obvious differences in the functional organization of brain areas associated with complex and simple sequences. These discrepancies that might reflect differences in brain network features of motor systems in these two sequences could also determine differences in related pathways.We examined neural activations during decision-making using fMRI paired with the two-choice decision-making task with probabilistic monetary gains. In particular, we assessed the impact of high-reward/risk events relative to low-reward/risk events on neural activations during choice selection and during reward anticipation. Seven healthy adults completed the study. We found, in line with previous results, that the selection phase predominantly recruited regions involved in conflict (anterior cingulate), manipulation of quantities (parietal lobe), and visuo-spatial attention (occipital lobe), whereas the anticipation phase prominently recruited regions engaged in reward processes (ventral striatum). These findings support the notion that taking a risk and awaiting the consequence of a risky decision seem to affect neural activity differently in selection and anticipation under different levels of risk/reward; and thus anterior cingulated, parietal lobe, occipital lobe and ventral striatum, are modulated differently by risk/reward during selection and anticipation.