Journal of Behavioral and Brain Science, 2014, 4, 58-68 Published Online January 2014 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/jbbs ) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jbbs.2014.41008 OPEN ACCESS JBBS Neuroimaging Phenomenology of the Central Self-Regulation Mechanisms Mark B. Shtark 1,2 , Kseniya Mazhirina 1 , Mariya Rezakova 3 , Andrey Savelov 3 , Mikhail Pokrovskiy 2 , Olga Jafarova 1 1 Research Institute of Molecular Biology and Biophysics, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia 2 Company “Biofeedback Computer Systems”, Novosibirsk, Russia 3 Research Institute “International Tomography Center”, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia Email: mark@soramn.ru , mazhirina_k@soramn.ru , jafarova@soramn.ru , avmavik@mail.ru , as@tomo.nsc.ru , mikhail@soramn.ru Received November 14, 2013; revised December 26, 2013; accepted January 14, 2014 Copyright © 2014 Mark B. Shtark et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. In accor- dance of the Creative Commons Attribution License all Copyrights © 2014 are reserved for SCIRP and the owner of the intellectual property Mark B. Shtark et al. All Copyright © 2014 are guarded by law and by SCIRP as a guardian. ABSTRACT Functional MRI was used to map the brains of subjects on-line during the process of media training for the ac- quisition and improvement of self-regulation mechanisms. The temporal and spatial dynamics of the new neural network formation were studied in real and simulated (false) biofeedback game, and their qualitative characte- ristics were discussed. It has been shown that immersion into a virtual competitive game, controlled by physio- logical responses, causes a wide involvement of the cortices, characterized by a high volume of activation in the mid-temporal, occipital and frontal areas, the cuneus and the precuneus. In both forms of media training, high values of activation volume were identified in the cerebellar structures. KEYWORDS Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Adaptive Feedback; Real and Imitation Biofeedback; Self-Regulation Strategies 1. Introduction The results of investigations of the mechanisms of real brain activity are known to be based mainly on several sources of knowledge. These are, first of all, experimen- tal animal models, intrascopic (static), and most frequent- ly, invasive studies of the human brain using a radioac- tive agent (CT, PET, FET-PET, etc.), psychophysiologi- cal studies based on deductive and inductive testing, the evaluation of electrical activity of the open (during neu- rosurgical interventions) or intact human brain, and fi- nally, analysis of its activity in the presence of local le- sions in specific cerebral areas. The knowledge obtained by all these means is extrapolated to the area of active brain activity in healthy or sick persons and forms the basis of today’s understanding of the functions of the central structures and higher neural activity. The technology of functional magnetic resonance im- aging (fMRI) is known to be fundamentally different from all the indirect ways of studying the brain that are mentioned above: it is a non-invasive in vivo dynamic study of the central structures during their activity, based on the difference in magnetic properties between the oxygen carrier oxyhemoglobin (Hb) and deoxyhemoglo- bin (dHb), which is produced in the brain parenchyma; their ratio is reflected by the BOLD phenomenon (blood oxygenation level dependent), a marker of neural activi- ty. Stereotypical or, on the contrary, heuristic actions, in- cluding cognitive mnemonic actions that have to do with solving creative tasks, as well as motor-sensory, visual- auditory and verbal operations, are accompanied by the formation of new neural ensembles (NE) in the brain and/or de-repression of pre-existing ones. Their sponta-