Global brain asymmetries in regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) observed during resting conditions with positron emission tomography (PET): Establishing a baseline for experiments on brain asymmetries and complex sounds in the CNS Project

During 1981–1985, the first author and colleagues at the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology at Washington University in St. Louis collected a series of 29 PET-scan studies of the brains of 16 normal young adult subjects using the PETT VI and intravenous oxygen-15 to test each subject in multiple 40-s scans, comparing rCBF topography during session-initial and session-final control scans, and under a variety of auditory stimulation conditions. Global hemispheric rCBF in all control scans are currently being measured in this library. Results will be presented for work to date, detailing between- and within-subject comparisons, including patterns to within- and between-session replications. These measurements will provide a baseline for the Coordinated Noninvasive Studies (CNS) Project, in which subjects first examined behaviorally for processing asymmetries (e.g., ear advantages), are then tested with PET to determine the degree of correlation between behavioral and physiological asymmetries. [Work supported by AFOSR.]