133. Predicting an observed movement after unilateral upper-

limb amputation—E. Carvalho Rodrigues, A.P. Fontana,

M. Joffily, G. Saunier, J. Kilner, C.D. Vargas, A. Sirigu

(Brazil)

Mirror neurons, described in the monkey’s F5 motor area, areactive during movement execution but also when the animalwatches the same movement. A similar neural execution/observa-tion mechanism, also implicated in the prediction of another per-son’s movement, exist also in humans. We evaluated if thiscapacity was affected by an upper-limb amputation. We recordedthe readiness potential (RP) while subjects watched a moviewhere, after 2.0 s, an actor grasped a green object (Mov_obs).In another video, the object was red and the actor’s handremained stationary (NO-movobs). Four patients with unilateralamputation and 8 control subjects were tested. The RP slopewas calculated using linear regression. ANOVA revealed an inter-action between experimental conditions and groups. Post-hocanalyses demonstrated that the difference between the Mov_obsand NO-movobs condition occurred both for the control groupand for the amputees when they had to predict the impedingaction performed with a hand corresponding to their intact hand,but not when amputees had to predict an observed hand move-ment on the side corresponding to their amputation. The absenceof a RP in Mov_obs condition for the amputated side and its pres-ervation in the spared side found in amputees suggests that corti-cal reorganization that follows amputation of a limb seems toimpair the motor anticipation of the corresponding limb.

doi:10.1016/j.clinph.2008.04.149

134. Language reorganization of patients with auditory

deficiencies observed by functional magnetic resonance

imaging—M.R. Pereira Jorge, M. Sturzbecher, A.C. San-

tos, D.B. de Araujo (Brazil)

The patients were examined before and after continuous use ofAASI. Ten subjects were evaluated (4 female and 6 male) at agesranging between 19 and 68 years old. Audiometric exam consistedon basic pure-tone audiometria, and speech recognition threshold(SRT). Functional and audiometric examination was conductedbefore the adaptation of hearing aids and one year after their con-tinual use. Image acquisition consisted of EPI-BOLD and a T1-weighted anatomical sequence. The stimulus was delivered by aMRI compatible headphone, in a block paradigm, with six blocksof rest, interleaved with five blocks of activity, when the individ-uals passive listened to a pre-selected story. Audiometric evalua-tion revealed that all subjects had bilateral hearing loss of thesensorineural NS type, from moderate to severe degree, beforethe use of AASI. All patients showed significant improvementin the speak recognition threshold (SRT) test for both ears afterthe use of the AASI (p < 0.001). Multi subject fMRI evaluationrevealed important activation in the posterosuperior temporallobe, near the primary auditory cortex (superior temporal gyrus)and activation of the verbal language receptive fields, as the Wer-nicke area that showed themselves more active after the binauralfitting of the AASIs. The results suggest the rehabilitation of thecentral auditory system, as demonstrated by the audiometric eval-uation, more specifically with respect to SRT. Moreover, we

herein observed that such neuroplasticity is also related to fMRIsignal changes, specially interesting in language centers.

doi:10.1016/j.clinph.2008.04.150

135. Somatosensory evoked potentials in athletes—T.

Murakami, K. Sakuma, K. Nakashima (Japan)

Football players perform skilled lower-limb movements duringfootball games and daily training. We hypothesized that the cor-tical representation of the lower limbs in football players differsfrom that in non-football players. We examined how this featurewas expressed in somatosensorial evoked potentials (SEPs) andhigh frequency oscillations (HFOs) by comparing the results from7 healthy football players and 7 healthy non-football players. Wecompared SEPs and HFOs in 7 football players and 7 non-foot-ball players. Electrical stimuli were delivered to the posterior tibialnerves and the median nerves, bilaterally. SEPs were recordedfrom Cz0 for the posterior tibial nerves and C30 and C40 for themedian nerves. The reference electrode was set at Fz. A 0.3–3000 Hz filter was used in recording SEPs. HFOs were separatedby 400–800 Hz band-pass filtering. For posterior tibial nerveSEPs, the P37-N45 amplitude in football players was significantlylarger than that in non-football players. For the early and totalHFOs, the number of negative peaks in football players was sig-nificantly larger than that in non-football players. No significantdifferences between the two groups were obtained with mediannerve stimulation. There was a significant correlation betweenlong-term training and SEPs and HFOs. Playing football gamesand daily long-term training bring about plastic excitation inthe somatosensory cortex representation of the lower limbs infootball players.

doi:10.1016/j.clinph.2008.04.151

136. Smallest right anterior cingulate gyrus volume inADHD adults—L.G. Almeida Montes, J. Ricardo Garcell,

A. Fernandez Bouzas, H. Belmont, D. Avila, T. Harmony,

A.O. Hernandez Garcıa, H. Prado Alcantara, L. Garcıa

Galvez (Mexico)

To compare the volume of the anterior cingulated gyrus(ACG) between adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disor-der (ADHD) and healthy subjects, using MRI, 20 subjects whomet the diagnostic criteria for ADHD combined type accordingDSM IV and 20 healthy subjects age and gender paired withthe ADHD subjects were selected. A cranial MRI study (T1)was made. Gender, age, height, weight and body mass index(BMI) were introduced in an ANCOVA model. The rho Spear-man test (rs) was used to correlate the severity of the disorderwith the volume of the ACG. The volume of the right ACGwas of 8.08 ML (±1.76) in healthy subjects. In contrast, thevolume of the right ACG of the ADHD subjects was of6.56 ML (±1.94). There were no differences between groups inthe volume of the left ACG. The correlation between the vol-ume of the right ACG and the number of DSM IV-TR inatten-tion criteria was of rs = �.404 and with hyperactivity was ofrs = �.339. The smallest volume of the ACG seen in younger

e132 Society Proceedings / Clinical Neurophysiology 119 (2008) e99–e164