Cerebro-cerebellar interactions in non-human primates examined by optogenetic fMRI

Summary

A collaborative research led by Professor Atsushi Nambu, Professor Norihiro Sadato, and Associate Professor Masaki Fukunaga from the National Institute for Physiological Sciences (National Institute of Natural Sciences) investigated how the optogenetic stimulation of the primary motor cortex (M1) of monkeys causes neural modulation in brain regions. By using optogenetic functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (opto-fMRI), they demonstrated that optogenetic stimulation of the M1 forelimb and hindlimb regions successfully evoked robust direct activities in the M1 and remote fMRI activities in cerebellum of anesthetized macaque monkeys.

This results shows the advancement of opto-fMRI in understanding of the brain network of non-human primates thereby accelerating the translation of findings from animal models to humans.

【Information on the outcome】

https://www.amed.go.jp/news/seika/kenkyu/20220623-02.html（AMED）
https://www.nips.ac.jp/release/2022/06/2022fmri.html　(NIPS）

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