scholarly journals Disentangling semantic composition and semantic association in the left temporal lobe

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jixing Li ◽  
Liina Pylkkänen
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Lobe ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Temporal Region ◽  
Left Temporal Lobe ◽  
Semantic Association ◽  
High Association ◽  
Middle Temporal ◽  
Semantic Composition

AbstractAlthough composing two words into a complex representation (e.g., “coffee cake”) is conceptually different from forming associations between a pair of words (e.g., “coffee, cake”), the brain regions supporting semantic composition have also been implicated for associative encoding. Here, we adopted a two-word magnetoencephalography (MEG) paradigm which varies compositionality (“French/Korean cheese” vs. “France/Korea cheese”) and strength of association (“France/French cheese” vs. “Korea/Korean cheese”) between the two words. We applied both univariate regression analyses and multivariate pattern classification to the source-localized MEG data in a bilateral language network. We show that the left anterior and middle temporal lobe (LMTL) are distinctively modulated by semantic composition and semantic association. Specifically, the LATL is mostly sensitive to high-association compositional phrases, while the LMTL responds more to low-association compositional phrases. Pattern-based directed connectivity analyses further revealed a continuous information flow from the anterior to the middle temporal region, suggesting that the integration of adjective and noun properties originated earlier in the LATL is consistently delivered to the LMTL when the complex meaning is newly encountered. Taken together, our findings shed light into a functional dissociation within the left temporal lobe for compositional and distributional semantic processing.Significance StatementPrior studies on semantic composition and associative encoding have been conducted independently within the subfields of language and memory, and they typically adopt similar two-word experimental paradigms. However, no direct comparison has been made on the neural substrates of the two processes. The current study relates the two streams of literature, and appeals to audiences in both subfields within cognitive neuroscience. Disentangling the neural computations for semantic composition and association also offers insight into modeling compositional and distributional semantics, which has been the subject of much discussion in natural language processing and cognitive science.

scholarly journals Both the Middle Temporal Gyrus and the Ventral Anterior Temporal Area Are Crucial for Multimodal Semantic Processing: Distortion-corrected fMRI Evidence for a Double Gradient of Information Convergence in the Temporal Lobes

2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (8) ◽  
pp. 1766-1778 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maya Visser ◽  
Elizabeth Jefferies ◽  
Karl V. Embleton ◽  
Matthew A. Lambon Ralph
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Lobe ◽  
Visual Processing ◽  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Ventral Surface ◽  
Middle Temporal Gyrus ◽  
Temporal Region ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Temporal Area ◽  
Middle Temporal ◽  
Principal Axes

Most contemporary theories of semantic memory assume that concepts are formed from the distillation of information arising in distinct sensory and verbal modalities. The neural basis of this distillation or convergence of information was the focus of this study. Specifically, we explored two commonly posed hypotheses: (a) that the human middle temporal gyrus (MTG) provides a crucial semantic interface given the fact that it interposes auditory and visual processing streams and (b) that the anterior temporal region—especially its ventral surface (vATL)—provides a critical region for the multimodal integration of information. By utilizing distortion-corrected fMRI and an established semantic association assessment (commonly used in neuropsychological investigations), we compared the activation patterns observed for both the verbal and nonverbal versions of the same task. The results are consistent with the two hypotheses simultaneously: Both MTG and vATL are activated in common for word and picture semantic processing. Additional planned, ROI analyses show that this result follows from two principal axes of convergence in the temporal lobe: both lateral (toward MTG) and longitudinal (toward the anterior temporal lobe).

scholarly journals The Causal Role of Left and Right Superior Temporal Gyri in Speech Perception in Noise: A Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (6) ◽  
pp. 1092-1103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Kennedy-Higgins ◽  
Joseph T. Devlin ◽  
Helen E. Nuttall ◽  
Patti Adank
Keyword(s):  
Speech Perception ◽  
Side Effects ◽  
Temporal Lobe ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Background Noise ◽  
Superior Temporal Gyrus ◽  
Left Temporal Lobe ◽  
Neural Organization ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
Listening Strategies

Successful perception of speech in everyday listening conditions requires effective listening strategies to overcome common acoustic distortions, such as background noise. Convergent evidence from neuroimaging and clinical studies identify activation within the temporal lobes as key to successful speech perception. However, current neurobiological models disagree on whether the left temporal lobe is sufficient for successful speech perception or whether bilateral processing is required. We addressed this issue using TMS to selectively disrupt processing in either the left or right superior temporal gyrus (STG) of healthy participants to test whether the left temporal lobe is sufficient or whether both left and right STG are essential. Participants repeated keywords from sentences presented in background noise in a speech reception threshold task while receiving online repetitive TMS separately to the left STG, right STG, or vertex or while receiving no TMS. Results show an equal drop in performance following application of TMS to either left or right STG during the task. A separate group of participants performed a visual discrimination threshold task to control for the confounding side effects of TMS. Results show no effect of TMS on the control task, supporting the notion that the results of Experiment 1 can be attributed to modulation of cortical functioning in STG rather than to side effects associated with online TMS. These results indicate that successful speech perception in everyday listening conditions requires both left and right STG and thus have ramifications for our understanding of the neural organization of spoken language processing.

Palinacousis: an eloquent symptom of temporal lobe lesion

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. e236615
Author(s):  
Catherine Veilleux ◽  
Gilles El-Hage ◽  
Nathalie L'Ecuyer ◽  
Michel W Bojanowski
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Lobe ◽  
Cavernous Malformation ◽  
Epileptiform Activity ◽  
Superior Temporal Gyrus ◽  
Awake Surgery ◽  
Temporal Region ◽  
Left Temporal Lobe ◽  
Auditory Acuity ◽  
Temporal Lobe Lesion ◽  
Stimulation Of

A 24-year-old woman was referred to us for an intracranial haemorrhage in the left temporal lobe caused by a ruptured cavernous malformation; the bleeding extended over the left Heschl’s gyrus and Wernicke area. On admission, the patient had global aphasia. A few days later, she spontaneously improved but remained with mild residual comprehensive dysphasia. She reported hearing, in her right ear, recently heard words, which is consistent with palinacousis. Auditory acuity testing was normal. EEG showed focal slowing in the left temporal region with no epileptiform activity. During awake surgery for resection of the cavernous malformation, stimulation of the superior temporal gyrus did not provoke palinacousis. The patient made good recovery with complete resolution of the aphasia and no recurrence of palinacousis. We aimed to review this phenomenon and to provide a systematic review of the current literature.

scholarly journals Decoding social knowledge in the human brain

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Alcalá-López ◽  
David Soto
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Lobe ◽  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Social Knowledge ◽  
Support Vector ◽  
Meta Analyses ◽  
The Brain

AbstractThe present functional MRI study addressed how the brain maps different aspects of social information. We focused on two key dimensions of social knowledge: affect and likableness. Thirty participants were presented with audio definitions, half referring to affective (e.g. empathetic) and half to non-affective concepts (e.g. intelligent). Orthogonally, half of the concepts were highly likable (e.g. sincere) and half were socially undesirable (e.g. liar). We used a support vector machine to delineate how both concept dimensions are represented in a set of 9 a priori brain regions defined from previous meta-analyses on semantic and social cognition. We show that average decoding in semantic regions (e.g. lateral temporal lobe, inferior frontal gyrus, and precuneus) outperformed social ROIs (e.g. insula and anterior cingulate), with the lateral temporal lobe containing the highest amount of information about the affect and likableness of social concepts. We also found that the insula had a bias towards affect while the likableness dimension was better represented in anterior cingulate cortex. Our results do not support a modular view of social knowledge representation. They rather indicate that the brain representation of social concepts implicates a distributed network of regions that involves ‘domain-specific’ social cognitive systems, but with a greater dependence on language-semantic processing.

scholarly journals Frontal language areas do not emerge in the absence of temporal language areas: A case study of an individual born without a left temporal lobe

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greta Tuckute ◽  
Alexander Paunov ◽  
Hope Kean ◽  
Hannah Small ◽  
Zachary Mineroff ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Frontal Cortex ◽  
Frontal Lobe ◽  
Temporal Lobe ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Right Hemisphere ◽  
Left Temporal Lobe ◽  
High Level ◽  
Temporal Language ◽  
Language Areas

High-level language processing is supported by a left-lateralized fronto-temporal brain network. How this network emerges ontogenetically remains debated. Given that frontal cortex in general exhibits protracted development, frontal language areas presumably emerge later and/or mature more slowly than temporal language areas. But are temporal areas necessary for the development of the language areas in the frontal lobe, or do frontal language areas instead emerge independently? We shed light on this question through a case study of an individual (EG) born without a left temporal lobe. We use fMRI methods that have been previously extensively validated for their ability to elicit robust language responses at the individual-subject level. As expected in cases of early left hemisphere (LH) damage, we find that EG has a fully functional language network in her right hemisphere (RH) and performs within the normal range on standardized language assessments. However, her RH frontal language areas have no corresponding LH homotopic areas: no reliable response to language is detected on the lateral surface of EG's left frontal lobe. However, another network implicated in high-level cognition - the domain-general multiple demand, MD, network - is robustly present in both right and left frontal lobes, suggesting that EG's left frontal cortex is capable of supporting non-linguistic cognitive functions. The existence of temporal language areas therefore appears to be a prerequisite for the emergence of the language areas in the frontal lobe.

scholarly journals The Brain Structure and Intrinsic Characters of Falsification Thinking in Conditional Proposition Testing

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meng Zhang ◽  
Li Wang ◽  
Feng Zou ◽  
Yufeng Wang ◽  
Xin Wu
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Lobe ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Gray Matter Volume ◽  
Structural Mri ◽  
Intrinsic Activity ◽  
Structural Basis ◽  
Temporal Region ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Microstate Analysis ◽  
The Right

Wason's selection task (WST) as a representative of the field of conditional proposition testing has been explored by multiple disciplines for more than 50 years, but the neural basis of its key falsification thinking remains unclear. Considering that the accuracy of individuals in WST has stability over time, we believe that falsification thinking has a specific brain structural basis and intrinsic neural characteristics. To test this hypothesis, we studied individuals who were able to complete the WST using T1-weighted MRI (using voxel-based morphology (VBM) analysis) and resting electroencephalogram (EEG) (using microstate analysis, which can reflect stable cognitive characteristics of individuals) techniques. First, VBM analysis found that, compared with the verification group, the gray matter volume (GMV) of the left inferior temporal gyrus and the right superior temporal region of the falsification group was larger, whereas the GMV in the cerebellum of the verification group was significantly larger than that of the falsification group. Subsequently, the results of the microstate analysis of the resting EEG data showed that the contribution of class A of the falsification group, which is closely related to the language network, is significantly higher than that of the verification group. Our structural MRI and resting EEG results consistently show that the structure and intrinsic activity pattern of the temporal lobe in individuals with falsification thinking are specific. Furthermore, the findings may provide potential insights into the role of the temporal lobe (which is also a brain region of language processing) in thought.

scholarly journals Neural correlates of semantic processing in patients harboring tumors in the left temporal lobe

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sierpowska Joanna ◽  
Gabarr�s Andreu ◽  
Fernandez-Coello Alejandro ◽  
Camins Angels ◽  
Casta�er Sara ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Lobe ◽  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Left Temporal Lobe

scholarly journals Left anterior temporal lobe is necessary for efficient lateralised processing of spoken word identity

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Cope ◽  
Yury Shtyrov ◽  
Lucy MacGregor ◽  
Rachel Holland ◽  
Friedemann Pulvermüller ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Lobe ◽  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Right Hemisphere ◽  
Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽  
Structural Mri ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Middle Temporal Gyrus ◽  
Special Treatment ◽  
Anterior Temporal Lobe ◽  
Healthy Human

AbstractIn the healthy human brain, the processing of spoken words is strongly left-lateralised, while the processing of complex non-linguistic sounds recruits brain regions bilaterally. Here we asked whether the left anterior temporal lobe, strongly implicated in semantic processing, is critical to this special treatment of linguistic stimuli. Nine patients with semantic dementia (SD) and fourteen age-matched controls underwent magnetoencephalography and structural MRI. Voxel based morphometry demonstrated the stereotypical pattern of SD: severe grey matter loss restricted to the left anterior temporal lobe. During magnetoencephalography, participants listened to word sets in which identity and meaning were ambiguous until utterance completion, for example played vs plate. Whereas left-hemispheric responses were similar across groups, patients demonstrated increased right hemisphere activity 174-294ms after stimulus disambiguation. Source reconstructions confirmed recruitment of right-sided analogues of language regions in SD: atrophy of left anterior temporal lobe was associated with increased activity in right temporal pole, middle temporal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus and supramarginal gyrus. Moreover only healthy controls had differential responses to words versus non-words in right auditory cortex and planum temporale. Overall, the results indicate that anterior temporal lobe is necessary for normal and efficient processing of word identity in the rest of the language network.

scholarly journals Neuroplasticity of language in left-hemisphere stroke: evidence linking subsecond electrophysiology and structural connections

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vitória Piai ◽  
Lars Meyer ◽  
Nina F. Dronkers ◽  
Robert T. Knight
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Lobe ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Right Hemisphere ◽  
Structural Connectivity ◽  
Left Temporal Lobe ◽  
Beta Power ◽  
Oscillatory Power ◽  
Alpha Beta ◽  
The Right

AbstractOur understanding of neuroplasticity following stroke is predominantly based on neuroimaging measures that cannot address the subsecond neurodynamics of impaired language processing. We combined behavioral and electrophysiological measures and structural-connectivity estimates to characterize neuroplasticity underlying successful compensation of language abilities after left-hemispheric stroke. We recorded the electroencephalogram from patients with stroke lesions to the left temporal lobe and matched controls during context-driven word retrieval. Participants heard lead-in sentences that either constrained the final word (“He locked the door with the”) or not (“She walked in here with the”). The last word was shown as a picture to be named. We conducted individual-participant analyses and focused on oscillatory power as a subsecond indicator of a brain region's functional neurophysiological computations. All participants named pictures faster following constrained than unconstrained sentences, except for two patients, who had extensive damage to the left temporal lobe. Left-lateralized alpha-beta oscillatory power decreased in controls pre-picture presentation for constrained relative to unconstrained contexts. In patients, the alpha-beta power decreases were observed with the same time course as in controls but were lateralized to the intact right hemisphere. The right lateralization depended on the probability of white-matter connections between the bilateral temporal lobes. The two patients who performed poorly behaviorally showed no alpha-beta power decreases. Our findings suggest that incorporating direct measures of neural activity into investigations of neuroplasticity can provide important neural markers to help predict language recovery, assess the progress of neurorehabilitation, and delineate targets for therapeutic neuromodulation.

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