This study investigated the functional specialisation characteristics of brain in multiple right-hand dominant subjects pertaining to the activation of the cerebral motor cortices evoked by unilateral finger tapping, especially in primary motor (M1) and supplementary motor (SMA) areas. This multiple-subject study used unilateral (UNIright and UNIleft) selfpaced tapping of hand fingers to activate the M1 and SMA. Brain activation characteristics were analysed using statistical parametric mapping (SPM). Activation for UNIright and UNIleft showed the involvement of contralateral and ipsilateral M1 and SMA. A larger activation area but with a lower percentage of signal change (PSC) were observed in the left M1 due to the control on UNIright (4164 voxels at α = 0.001, PSC = 1.650) as compared to the right M1 due to the control on UNIleft (2012 voxels at α = 0.001, PSC = 2.377). This is due to the influence of the tapping rate effects which is greater than what could be produced by the average effects of the dominant and sub-dominant hands. The significantly higher PSC value observed in the right M1 (p < 0.05) is due to a higher control demand used by the brain in coordinating the tapping of the sub-dominant fingers. The findings obtained from this study showed strong evidence of the existence of brain functional specialisation and could be used as baseline references in determining the most probable motor pathways in a sample of subjects.

Introduction: This multiple-subject fMRI study continue to further investigate brain activation within and effective connectivity between the significantly (p<0.001) activated primary motor area (M1), supplementary motor area (SMA) with the inclusion of BA44 during unimanual (UNIright and UNIleft) and bimanual (BIM) self-paced tapping of hand fingers. Methods: The activation extent (spatial and height) and effective connectivity were analysed using statistical parametric mapping (SPM), dynamic causal modeling (DCM) and the novel method of Bayesian model selection (BMS) for group studies. Results: Group results for UNIright and UNIleft showed contra-lateral and ipsi-lateral involvement of M1 and SMA. The results for BIM showed bilateral activation in M1, SMA and BA44. A larger activation area but with lower percentage of signal change (PSC) are observed in the left M1 due to the control on UNIright as compared to the right M1 due to the control on UNIleft. This is discussed as due to the influence of the tapping rate effects that is greater than what would be produced by the average effects of the dominant and sub-dominant hand. However, the higher PSC observed in the right M1 is due to a higher control demand used by the brain in coordinating the tapping of the sub-dominant hand fingers. Connectivity analysis indicated M1 as the intrinsic input for UNIright and UNIleft while for BIM, the inputs were both M1s. During unilateral finger tapping, the contra-lateral M1 acts as the input center which in turn triggers the propagation of signal unidirectionally to other regions of interest. The results obtained for BIM (BIMleft and BIMright) however yield a model with less number of significant connection. M1-M1 connection is unidirectional for UNIleft and UNIright originating from contra-lateral M1, and is inhibited during BIM. Conclusion: By taking into consideration the presence of outliers that could have arisen in any subject under study, BMS for group study has successfully chosen a model that has the best balance between accuracy (fit) and complexity.

Inferior parietal lobule (IPL) and inferior temporal gyrus (ITG) are two important brain regions for the default modenetwork (DMN). IPL has been known to be involved in the control of attention and responding to given information whileITG is involved in the processing and perception awakened by visual stimuli. These two key DMN regions are highlyinterconnected as determined from white matter and fiber tracking studies. However, little is known about their natureof connectivity while the brain is at rest, whether it is linear, bilinear or nonlinear and whether it is of mono- or bidirection.Resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) data were obtained from 7 healthy male andfemale participants (average age = 20.7 ± 4.5 years) and were concatenated. Data were analyzed using statisticalparametric mapping (SPM12). Endogenous brain signals were modelled by Fourier series at 0.01 – 0.08 Hz. IPL-ITGconnected linear, bilinear and non-linear causal models in both hemispheres were constructed and estimated by means ofstochastic dynamic causal modelling (sDCM) and were compared using Bayesian Model Selection (BMS) for group studies.Group fixed-effects results indicated that bilateral IPL and ITG exhibited high neural activity at a corrected significantlevel (pFWE < 0.05). Neural activity was centered in ITG (-32/2/-38) in the left hemisphere but shifted to IPL (32/-38/50) inthe right hemisphere indicating different control center for both hemispheres. BMS selected bilinear model as the optimalmodel for both hemispheres (model posterior probability ~ 1.0; log evidence > 1000) which has the best balance betweenmodel accuracy and difficulty. The minimum free energy (F) = -4.41 × 104 and -4.09 × 104 for left and right hemispherebilinear models respectively. From BMS and DCM results, it was found that IPL and ITG do have a dynamic collaborationbetween each other, a connectivity that belongs to a greater network when the brain is at rest. The intrinsic connectionsbetween them are negative in both directions i.e. IPL and ITG mutually inhibited each other. The effective connectivitywas modulated by the endogenous fluctuation of the brain signal.

In this study, the asymmetry of the main effects of action, background and tonal frequency during a pitch memory processingwere investigated by means of brain activation. Eighteen participants (mean age 27.6 years) were presented with low andhigh frequency tones in quiet and in noise. They listen, discriminate and recognize the target tone against the final tonein a series of four distracting tones. The main effects were studied using the analysis of variance (ANOVA) with action (towring (rubber bulb) vs. not to wring), background (in quiet vs. in noise) and frequency (low vs. high) as the factors (andlevels respectively). The main effect of action is in the right pre-central gyrus (PCG), in conformation with its contralateralbehavior. The main effect of background indicated the bilateral primary auditory cortices (PAC) and is right lateralized,attributable to white noise. The main effect of frequency is also observed in PAC but bilaterally equal and attributable tolow frequency tones. Despite the argument that the temporo-spectral lateralization dichotomy is not especially rigid asrevealed by the main effect of frequency, right lateralization of PAC for the respective main effect of background clearlydemonstrates its functional asymmetry suggesting different perceptual functionality of the right and left PAC.