ABSTRACT
For example, an fMRI study to detect the regions of the brain involved with Ÿne motor skills of the Ÿngers could compare a predetermined movement pattern of the Ÿngers as the task condition, and no Ÿnger movement as the baseline condition. is comparison would reveal any areas of the brain that are involved in any way with the motor task. Alternatively, the baseline condition could be another motor task of the hand, but in which all of the Ÿngers are moved together. Now the comparison would show the areas of the brain involved speciŸcally with Ÿne motor movements of the Ÿngers. e hypothesis in this case could be that Ÿne motor movement, in contrast with bulk movement, involves signiŸcantly more activity in the supplementary motor area. Another option is to alternate all three conditions, and make comparisons to reveal both the total motor response and speciŸcally the areas involved with individual Ÿnger control. Such tasks could be used in a study of concert pianists or violinists, compared with a similar age and gender group of nonmusicians, and the study could be repeated a¦er each group has an opportunity to practice the tasks. Alternatively, the same tasks could be used to compare a group of healthy control subjects with a group of patients who have su˜ered strokes a˜ecting their hand motor skills. Each of the three conditions described in this example can be sustained for a period of time to allow the BOLD signal changes to reach a peak and maintain a certain level, or to return to baseline. e activity shown would therefore be the sustained activity over the whole period of each condition, which could be di˜erent from transient activity involved with performing each movement. Another alternative would therefore be to design the motor tasks to involve a movement of one Ÿnger at a time, or all Ÿngers, every several seconds, and then to compare the responses to each type of movement (i.e., which Ÿnger or Ÿngers moved).
