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Professor

Ryuta KAWASHIMA

Associate Professor

Yasuyuki TAKI

Assistant Professor

Hiroshi HASHIZUME

In this division, we will combine pedagogy and cognitive psychology together with brain science, which seeks to determine the relationship between the human brain and mind using functional brain imaging instruments. In doing so, we will study and develop a new and practical teaching and learning system for children to facilitate their sound development and growth, and in addition improve their appetite for learning, ability to think logically, creativity, intellectual curiosity, and spirit of inquiry.

At present, few scientific data are available regarding cognitive function development in healthy children. For the first three years, therefore, we will use MRI and focus on brain morphology, brain function, and cognitive function development in children to advance basic research. At the same time, we will examine which types of lifestyle and relationship with family members will nurture children's rich spirit, by conducting questionnaire surveys and cognitive function tests to determine the relationship between cognitive function development in children and various environmental factors surrounding children today.

It is expected that study in this division will help complete the basic theory for a new and practical teaching and learning system, which will facilitate children's sound development and growth as well as improve their appetite for learning, ability to think logically, creativity, intellectual curiosity, and spirit of inquiry.

Fig.1 Gray matter regions that show significant positive correlation with age.

Fig.2 Regional cerebral blood flow that show significant negative correlation with age

Fig.3 Neural substrates associated with inhibitory control

Publication list

1. Taki Y, Kinomura S, Sato K, Goto R, Kawashima R, Fukuda H "A longitudinal study of gray matter volume decline with age and modifying factors" Neurobiology of Aging, in press
2. Sugiura M, Sassa Y, Watanabe J, Akitsuki Y, Maeda Y, Matsue Y, Kawashima R "Anatomical segregation of representations of personally familiar and famous people in the temporal and parietal cortices " Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 21:1855-1868, 2009.
3. Sugiura M, Wakusawa K, Sekiguchi A, Sassa Y, Jeong H, Horie K, Sato S, Kawashima R "Extraction of situational meaning by integrating multiple meanings in a complex environment: a functional MRI study" Human Brain Mapping. 30(8): 2678-2688, 2009.
4. Inoue K, Ito H, Uchida S, Taki Y, Kinomura S, Tsuji I, Sato S, Horie K, Kawashima R, Ito M, Fukuda H "Decrease in glucose metabolism in frontal cortex associated with deterioration of microstructure of corpus callosum measured by diffusion tensor imaging in healthy elderly" Human Brain Mapping. 29: 375-384, 2008.
5. Taki Y, Kinomura S, Sato K, Inoue K, Goto R, Okada K, Uchida S, Kawashima R, Fukuda H "Relationship between body mass index and gray matter volumes in 1428 healthy individuals" Obesity Research. 16：119-124, 2008.
6. Sugiura M, Sassa Y, Jeong H, Horie K, Sato S, Kawashima R "Face-specific and domain-general characteristics of cortical responses during self-recognition" Neuroimage. 42: 414-422, 2008.
7. Jeong H, Sugiura M, Sassa Y, Haji T, Usui N, Taira M, Sato S, Kawashima R "Effect of syntactic similarity on cortical activation during second language processing: A comparison of English and Japanese among native Korean trilinguals" Human Brain Mapping. 28: 194-204, 2007.
8. Jeong H, Sugiura M, Sassa Y, Yokoyama S, Horie K, Sato S, Taira M, Kawashima R "Cross-linguistic influence on brain activation during second language processing: an fMRI study" Bilingualisum: Language and Cognition. 10: 175-187, 2007.
9. Sassa Y, Sugiura M, Jeong H, Horie K, Sato S, Kawashima R "Cortical mechanism of communicative speech production" Neuroimage. 37: 985-992, 2007.
10. Wakusawa K, Sugiura M, Sassa Y, Jeong H, Horie K, Sato S, Yokoyama H, Tsuchiya S, Inuma K, Kawashima R "Comprehension of implicit meanings in social situations involving irony: A functional MRI study" Neuroimage. 37: 1417-1426, 2007.
11. Sassa Y, Sugiura M, Watanabe J, Akitsuki Y, Maeda Y, Matsue Y, Kawashima R "Processing of anomalous sentences in Japanese: An fMRI study" Journal of Cognitive Science. 8: 153-170, 2007.
12. Taki Y, Kinomura S, Sato K, Goto R, Inoue K, Okada K, Ono S, Kawashima R, Fukuda H "Both global gray matter volume and regional gray matter volume negatively correlate with lifetime alcohol intake in non-alcohol-dependent Japanese men. A volumetric analysis and a voxel-based morphometry" Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. 30: 1045-1050, 2006.
13. Sugiura M, Sassa Y, Watanabe J, Akitsuki Y, Maeda Y, Matsue Y, Fukuda H, Kawashima R "Cortical mechanisms of person representation: Recognition of famous and personally familiar names" Neuroimage. 31: 853-860, 2006.
14. Sugiura M, Sassa Y, Jeong H, Miura N, Akitsuki Y, Horie K, Sato S, Kawashima R "Multiple brain networks for visual self-recognition with different sensitivity for motion and body part" Neuroimage. 32: 1905-1917, 2006.
15. Taki Y, Kinomura S, Awata S, Inoue K, Sato K, Ito H, Goto R, Uchida S, Tsuji I, Arai H, Kawashima R, Fukuda H "Male elderly subthreshold depression patients have smaller volume of medial part of prefrontal cortex and precentral gyrus compared with age-matched normal subjects: A voxel-based morphometry" J Affective Disorders. 88: 313-320, 2005.