Wesselink, D.B., Sanders, Z.-B., Edmondson, L.R. et al. (8 more authors) (2022) Malleability of the cortical hand map following a finger nerve block. Science Advances, 8 (16). eabk2393. ISSN 2375-2548
Abstract
Electrophysiological studies in monkeys show that finger amputation triggers local remapping within the deprived primary somatosensory cortex (S1). Human neuroimaging research, however, shows persistent S1 representation of the missing hand’s fingers, even decades after amputation. Here, we explore whether this apparent contradiction stems from underestimating the distributed peripheral and central representation of fingers in the hand map. Using pharmacological single-finger nerve block and 7-tesla neuroimaging, we first replicated previous accounts (electrophysiological and other) of local S1 remapping. Local blocking also triggered activity changes to nonblocked fingers across the entire hand area. Using methods exploiting interfinger representational overlap, however, we also show that the blocked finger representation remained persistent despite input loss. Computational modeling suggests that both local stability and global reorganization are driven by distributed processing underlying the topographic map, combined with homeostatic mechanisms. Our findings reveal complex interfinger representational features that play a key role in brain (re)organization, beyond (re)mapping.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Psychology (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number WELLCOME TRUST (THE) 209998/Z/17/Z |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 27 Apr 2022 14:03 |
Last Modified: | 27 Apr 2022 14:03 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | American Association for the Advancement of Science |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1126/sciadv.abk2393 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:186046 |