Grasping with hands and tools-studied by TMS on the premotor cortex.

• Main Authors: Kai-Ting Tseng, 曾楷婷
• Other Authors: Yu-Ju Chou
• Format: Others
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/93s48a

碩士 === 國立東華大學 === 諮商與臨床心理學系 === 102 === The present study aimed to explore whether the Premotor Cortex (PMC, includes BA 6 & BA 44) was a critical area to distinguish between ‘grasping objects with hands’ and ‘with tools’. The study hypothesized that there was a TMS effect when pictures of grasping were presented for 100 or 250 msec and followed by single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over the PMC. This study was composed of four experiments. Experiment 1 investigated various pictures of grasping which were presented for 100 msec, followed by TMS and sham-TMS over the PMC. Participants had to judge whether a picture was reasonable or unreasonable. According to the reaction time and accuracy, the study aimed to find out whether there was a TMS effect on ‘grasping objects with hands’. The design of Experiment 2 was the same with Experiment 1, except that the presentation duration of a picture was 250 msec. Experiment 3 investigated the TMS effect in the recognition of pictures which were presented for 100 msec and were composed of ‘grasping tools with hands’ in functional or unfunctional ways. The design of Experiment 4 was the same as experiment 3, except that the presentation duration of a picture was 250 msec. The results revealed three points. First, only the Experiment 1 showed an interaction of TMS and grasping according to the analysis of accuracy. The Post hoc tests showed that ‘grasping objects with hands’ yielded TMS effect, and ‘grasping objects with tools’ did not. This finding presented that the PMC was a critical area to recognize ‘grasping objects with hands’. Secondly, the grasping effect was repeated by all experiments. The variation of performance shown by ways of grasping revealed that they might have the different processing in the brain. Also, it presented that the picture stimuli that were newly designed by the study had a good level of distinctiveness. The last but not the least, the results of the four experiments showed grasping effects on both the BA 6 and BA 44. The findings presented the equivalent status of the two areas on the recognition of grasping. Thus, the study suggests that there is no need to separate BA 6 and BA 44 while investigatng function of the PMC in the future. Keywords：Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), Premotor Cortex (PMC), Grasping