Cervical Spinal fMRI Study: Modulation of Functional Activation Signal by Task Difficulty, Hand Skill and Handedness

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the effect of task difficulty, hand skill and handedness on the functional activation signal inside the cervical spinal cord by fMRI. Methods: Spinal-BOLD-fMRI at 3T was performed on 10 healthy right-handed volunteers performing 4 sessions of unilateral fingers-tapping tasks with 2 difficulty levels. Results: The mean t-value of activation areas inside the spinal cords in the left-hand difficult task is significantly larger than the right-hand. Conclusions: Our results showed that more neural activities are associated in the left hands than in the right when doing difficult finger tasks, which suggests the interaction between handedness and functional activation.