Mental rotation (MR) is a cognitive skill whose neural dynamics are still a matter of debate as previous neuroimaging studies have produced controversial results. In order to investigate the underlying neurophysiology of MR, hemodynamic responses from the prefrontal cortex of 14 healthy subjects were recorded with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) during a novel MR task that had three categorical difficulty levels. Hemodynamic activity strength (HAS) parameter, which reflects the ratio of brain activation during the task to the baseline activation level, was used to assess the prefrontal cortex activation localization and strength. Behavioral data indicated that the MR requiring conditions are more difficult than the condition that did not require MR. The right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) was found to be active in all conditions and to be the dominant region in the easiest task while more complex tasks showed widespread bilateral prefrontal activation. A significant increase in left DLPFC activation was observed with increasing task difficulty. Significantly higher right DLPFC activation was observed when the incongruent trials were contrasted against the congruent trials, which implied the possibility of a robust error or conflict-monitoring process during the incongruent trials. Our results showed that the right DLPFC is a core region for the processing of MR tasks regardless of the task complexity and that the left DLPFC is involved to a greater extent with increasing task complexity, which is consistent with the previous neuroimaging literature.

中文翻译：

---

功能近红外光谱表明，拼图智力旋转中的不对称右半球激活随着任务难度的增加而减少

心理旋转 (MR) 是一种认知技能，其神经动力学仍然存在争议，因为之前的神经影像学研究已经产生了有争议的结果。为了研究 MR 的潜在神经生理学，在具有三个分类难度级别的新 MR 任务期间，使用功能性近红外光谱 (fNIRS) 记录了 14 名健康受试者的前额叶皮层的血流动力学反应。血液动力学活动强度 (HAS) 参数反映了任务期间大脑激活与基线激活水平的比率，用于评估前额叶皮层激活定位和强度。行为数据表明，需要 MR 的条件比不需要 MR 的条件更困难。发现右侧背外侧前额叶皮层 (DLPFC) 在所有条件下都很活跃，并且是最简单任务中的主要区域，而更复杂的任务则显示出广泛的双边前额叶激活。随着任务难度的增加，观察到左侧 DLPFC 激活显着增加。当不一致的试验与一致的试验进行对比时，观察到显着更高的右侧 DLPFC 激活，这意味着在不一致的试验期间可能出现稳健的错误或冲突监控过程。我们的结果表明，无论任务复杂性如何，右侧 DLPFC 都是处理 MR 任务的核心区域，并且左侧 DLPFC 随着任务复杂性的增加而在更大程度上参与，这与之前的神经影像学文献一致。