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Brief Relaxation Practice Induces Significantly More Prefrontal Cortex Activation during Arithmetic Tasks Comparing to Viewing Greenery Images as Revealed by Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS)

Background: There is little understanding on how brief relaxation practice and viewing greenery images would affect brain responses during cognitive tasks. In the present study, we examined the variation in brain activation of the prefrontal cortex during arithmetic tasks before and after viewing gr...

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Autores principales: Zhang, Zhisong, Olszewska-Guizzo, Agnieszka, Husain, Syeda Fabeha, Bose, Jessica, Choi, Jongkwan, Tan, Wanqiu, Wang, Jiayun, Xuan Tran, Bach, Wang, Bokun, Jin, Yajie, Xuan, Wei, Yan, Pinjia, Li, Maomao, Ho, Cyrus S. H., Ho, Roger
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7698004/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33198147
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17228366
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author Zhang, Zhisong
Olszewska-Guizzo, Agnieszka
Husain, Syeda Fabeha
Bose, Jessica
Choi, Jongkwan
Tan, Wanqiu
Wang, Jiayun
Xuan Tran, Bach
Wang, Bokun
Jin, Yajie
Xuan, Wei
Yan, Pinjia
Li, Maomao
Ho, Cyrus S. H.
Ho, Roger
author_facet Zhang, Zhisong
Olszewska-Guizzo, Agnieszka
Husain, Syeda Fabeha
Bose, Jessica
Choi, Jongkwan
Tan, Wanqiu
Wang, Jiayun
Xuan Tran, Bach
Wang, Bokun
Jin, Yajie
Xuan, Wei
Yan, Pinjia
Li, Maomao
Ho, Cyrus S. H.
Ho, Roger
author_sort Zhang, Zhisong
collection PubMed
description Background: There is little understanding on how brief relaxation practice and viewing greenery images would affect brain responses during cognitive tasks. In the present study, we examined the variation in brain activation of the prefrontal cortex during arithmetic tasks before and after viewing greenery images, brief relaxation practice, and control task using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Method: This randomized controlled study examined the activation patterns of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in three groups of research participants who were exposed to viewing greenery images (n = 10), brief relaxation practice (n = 10), and control task (n = 11). The activation pattern of the PFC was measured pre- and post-intervention using a portable fNIRS device and reported as mean total oxygenated hemoglobin (HbO μm). Primary outcome of the study is the difference in HbO μm between post- and pre-intervention readings during a cognitive task that required the research participants to perform arithmetic calculation. Results: In terms of intervention-related differences, there was significant difference in average HbO μm when performing arithmetic tasks before and after brief relaxation practice (p < 0.05). There were significant increases in average HbO μm in the right frontopolar cortex (p = 0.029), the left frontopolar cortex (p = 0.01), and the left orbitofrontal cortex (p = 0.033) during arithmetic tasks after brief relaxation practice. In contrast, there were no significant differences in average HbO μm when performing arithmetic tasks before and after viewing greenery images (p > 0.05) and the control task (p > 0.05). Conclusion: Our preliminary findings show that brief relaxation practice but not viewing greenery images led to significant frontal lobe activation during arithmetic tasks. The present study demonstrated, for the first time, that there was an increase in activation in neuroanatomical areas including the combined effort of allocation of attentional resources, exploration, and memory performance after the brief relaxation practice. Our findings suggest the possibility that the right frontopolar cortex, the left frontopolar cortex, and the left orbitofrontal cortex may be specifically associated with the benefits of brief relaxation on the brain.
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spelling pubmed-76980042020-11-29 Brief Relaxation Practice Induces Significantly More Prefrontal Cortex Activation during Arithmetic Tasks Comparing to Viewing Greenery Images as Revealed by Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) Zhang, Zhisong Olszewska-Guizzo, Agnieszka Husain, Syeda Fabeha Bose, Jessica Choi, Jongkwan Tan, Wanqiu Wang, Jiayun Xuan Tran, Bach Wang, Bokun Jin, Yajie Xuan, Wei Yan, Pinjia Li, Maomao Ho, Cyrus S. H. Ho, Roger Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Background: There is little understanding on how brief relaxation practice and viewing greenery images would affect brain responses during cognitive tasks. In the present study, we examined the variation in brain activation of the prefrontal cortex during arithmetic tasks before and after viewing greenery images, brief relaxation practice, and control task using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Method: This randomized controlled study examined the activation patterns of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in three groups of research participants who were exposed to viewing greenery images (n = 10), brief relaxation practice (n = 10), and control task (n = 11). The activation pattern of the PFC was measured pre- and post-intervention using a portable fNIRS device and reported as mean total oxygenated hemoglobin (HbO μm). Primary outcome of the study is the difference in HbO μm between post- and pre-intervention readings during a cognitive task that required the research participants to perform arithmetic calculation. Results: In terms of intervention-related differences, there was significant difference in average HbO μm when performing arithmetic tasks before and after brief relaxation practice (p < 0.05). There were significant increases in average HbO μm in the right frontopolar cortex (p = 0.029), the left frontopolar cortex (p = 0.01), and the left orbitofrontal cortex (p = 0.033) during arithmetic tasks after brief relaxation practice. In contrast, there were no significant differences in average HbO μm when performing arithmetic tasks before and after viewing greenery images (p > 0.05) and the control task (p > 0.05). Conclusion: Our preliminary findings show that brief relaxation practice but not viewing greenery images led to significant frontal lobe activation during arithmetic tasks. The present study demonstrated, for the first time, that there was an increase in activation in neuroanatomical areas including the combined effort of allocation of attentional resources, exploration, and memory performance after the brief relaxation practice. Our findings suggest the possibility that the right frontopolar cortex, the left frontopolar cortex, and the left orbitofrontal cortex may be specifically associated with the benefits of brief relaxation on the brain. MDPI 2020-11-12 2020-11 /pmc/articles/PMC7698004/ /pubmed/33198147 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17228366 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Zhang, Zhisong
Olszewska-Guizzo, Agnieszka
Husain, Syeda Fabeha
Bose, Jessica
Choi, Jongkwan
Tan, Wanqiu
Wang, Jiayun
Xuan Tran, Bach
Wang, Bokun
Jin, Yajie
Xuan, Wei
Yan, Pinjia
Li, Maomao
Ho, Cyrus S. H.
Ho, Roger
Brief Relaxation Practice Induces Significantly More Prefrontal Cortex Activation during Arithmetic Tasks Comparing to Viewing Greenery Images as Revealed by Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS)
title Brief Relaxation Practice Induces Significantly More Prefrontal Cortex Activation during Arithmetic Tasks Comparing to Viewing Greenery Images as Revealed by Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS)
title_full Brief Relaxation Practice Induces Significantly More Prefrontal Cortex Activation during Arithmetic Tasks Comparing to Viewing Greenery Images as Revealed by Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS)
title_fullStr Brief Relaxation Practice Induces Significantly More Prefrontal Cortex Activation during Arithmetic Tasks Comparing to Viewing Greenery Images as Revealed by Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS)
title_full_unstemmed Brief Relaxation Practice Induces Significantly More Prefrontal Cortex Activation during Arithmetic Tasks Comparing to Viewing Greenery Images as Revealed by Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS)
title_short Brief Relaxation Practice Induces Significantly More Prefrontal Cortex Activation during Arithmetic Tasks Comparing to Viewing Greenery Images as Revealed by Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS)
title_sort brief relaxation practice induces significantly more prefrontal cortex activation during arithmetic tasks comparing to viewing greenery images as revealed by functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fnirs)
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7698004/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33198147
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17228366
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