• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.730-740
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to investigate secondary science teachers' brain activation and functional connectivity during scientific observation on the biological phenomena. Twenty six right-handed healthy science teachers volunteered to be in the present study. To investigate science teachers' brain activities during the tasks, 3.0T fMRI system with block design was used to measure BOLD signals in their brains. The SPM2 software package was applied to analyze the acquired initial image data from the fMRI system. The results have shown that the left inferior frontal gyrus, the bilateral superior parietal lobule, the left inferior parietal lobule, the left precuneus, the left superior occipital gyrus, the right middle occipital gyrus, the right precuneus, the left inferior occipital gyrus and bilateral fusiform gyrus were significantly activated during participants' scientific observation. The network model consisted of eleven nodes (ROIs) and its ten connections. These results suggested the notion that scientific observation needs a connective cooperation among several brain regions associated with observing over just a sensory receiving process.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.84-92
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to investigate biologists' brain activation patterns during the generation of scientific questions on biological phenomena. Eight right-handed healthy biologists volunteered to be participants in the present study. The question-generation tasks were presented in a block design. The BOLD signals of the biologists' brain were measured by 3.0T fMRI system and data were analyzed using Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM2). According to our results, the left inferior and middle frontal gyri, the medial prefrontal cortex, the bilateral hippocampus, the occipito-parietal route, the fusiform gyrus, and the cerebellum were activated significantly during the generation of scientific questions. Therefore, we suggested that generating scientific question is associated with analyzing observed situations, using verbal strategy, retrieving episodic memories for comparisons, and feeling cognitive conflicts.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.60 no.3
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• pp.203-214
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to investigate brain activation pattern and functional connectivity during convergence thinking based creative problem solving and chemistry problem solving to identify characteristic convergence thinking that is backbone of creative problem solving using functional magnetic resonance imaging(fMRI). A fMRI paradaigm inducing convergence thinking and chemistry problem solving was developed and adjusted on 17 highschool students, and brain activation image during task was analyzed. According to the results, superior frontal gyrus, middle frontal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, medial frontal gyrus, cingulate gyrus, precuneus and caudate nucleus body in left hemisphere and cuneus and caudate nucleus body in right hemisphere were significantly activated during convergence thinking. The other hand, middle frontal gyrus, medial frontal gyrus and caudate nucleus in left hemisphere and middle frontal gyrus, lingual gyrus, caudate nucleus, thalamus and culmen of cerebellum in right hemisphere were significantly activated during chemistry problem solving. As results of analysis functional connectivity, all of areas activated during convergence thinking were functionaly connected, whereas scanty connectivity of chemistry problem solving between right middle frontal gyrus, bilateral nucleus caudate tail and culmen. The results show that logical thinking, working memory, planning, imaging, languge based thinking and learning motivation were induced during convergence thinking and these functions and regions were synchronized intimately. Whereas, logical thinking and inducing learning motivation functioning during chemistry problem solving were not synchronized. These results provide concrete information about convergence thinking.