An engineered glove for investigating the neural correlates of finger movements using functional magnetic resonance imaging

Abstract

Objective measurement of concomitant finger motor performance is recommended for functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies investigating brain activity during finger tapping tasks, because performance modality and ability can influence the selection of different neural networks. In this study, we present a novel glove system for quantitative evaluation of finger opposition movements during fMRI (called Glove Analyzer for fMRI, GAF). Several tests for magnetic resonance (MR) compatibility were performed concerning magnet forces, image artifacts and right functioning of the system. Then, pilot fMRI of finger opposition tasks were conducted at 1.5T and 3T to investigate the neural correlates of sequences of finger opposition movements with the right hand, with simultaneous behavioral recording by means of GAF. All the MR compatibility tests succeeded, and the fMRI analysis revealed mainly the activation of the left sensorimotor areas and right cerebellum, regions that are known to be involved in finger movements. No artifactual clusters were detected in the activation maps. At the same time, through the parameters calculated by GAF it was possible to describe the sensorimotor strategy adopted by the subjects during the required task. Thus, the proposed device resulted to be MR compatible and can be useful for future fMRI studies investigating the neural correlates of finger opposition movements, allowing follow-up studies and comparisons among different groups of patients.

Neuroplasticity of the sensorimotor neural network associated with walking aid training in people with multiple sclerosis

“…Bonzano and colleagues recently demonstrated that greater (motor) cortico-cerebellar connectivity (i.e. less inhibition) was correlated with learning on a finger-tapping task in PwMS (Bonzano et al, 2015). Conversely, recent work from our group found that while greater cortico-cerebellar connectivity strength was associated with better short-term postural adaptation in healthy young adults, this association was not observed in PwMS (r = 0.03) (Fling et al, 2015).…”

Quantitative assessment of finger motor performance: Normative data

“…In details, five conducting metal sensors are located on the palmar surface of the distal phalanxes of the glove, like fingerprints, in order to record the contact during opposition movements between the thumb and another finger (detecting a square wave corresponding to contact/no contact) [ 8 , 10 ]. Data were acquired at 1 KHz by means of a data acquisition board (USB-1208FS, Measurement Computing, USA).…”

“…An ad hoc software tool generated the acoustic pacing signal, which was delivered by the system and listened by the subjects through isolation headphones, and recorded the occurrence of each tone and of each finger touch in the motor sequence. As previously reported, the program used to provide the cue and for data recording and analysis was developed with the Microsoft Visual Studio 2013,.NET Framework 4.5, written in C# exploiting the Windows Presentation Foundation for desktop application development platform [ 10 ].…”

Frontoparietal cortex and cerebellum contribution to the update of actual and mental motor performance during the day

“…We were able to quantify both actual and mental performance concomitantly with fMRI acquisition by an ad hoc developed MR-compatible engineered glove 18 27 . Specifically, actual movements consisted in 5 repetitions of the sequence (thumb-to-index, medium, ring and little finger) and motor performance was assessed by the whole movement duration.…”

“…During each session, participants had to actually and mentally perform a simple sequence of finger opposition movements, as accurate and fast as possible. Simultaneous motor performance was measured by using a magnetic-resonance-compatible engineered glove 18 .…”