scholarly journals Modulation in Alpha Band Activity Reflects Syntax Composition: An MEG Study of Minimal Syntactic Binding

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie M Hardy ◽  
Ole Jensen ◽  
Linda Wheeldon ◽  
Ali Mazaheri ◽  
Katrien Segaert
Keyword(s):  
Target Word ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Inferior Temporal Cortex ◽  
Alpha Power ◽  
Sentence Structure ◽  
Alpha Band ◽  
Syntactic Binding

Successful sentence comprehension requires the binding, or composition, of multiple words into larger structures to establish meaning. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), we investigated the neural mechanisms involved in binding of language at the level of syntax, in a task in which contributions from semantics were minimized. Participants were auditorily presented with minimal sentences that required binding (pronoun and pseudo-verb with the corresponding morphological inflection; "she grushes") and wordlists that did not require binding (two pseudo-verbs; "cugged grushes"). Relative to the no binding wordlist condition, we found that syntactic binding in a minimal sentence structure was associated with a modulation in alpha band (8-12 Hz) activity in left-lateralized brain regions. First, in the sentence condition, we observed a significantly smaller increase in alpha power around the presentation of the target word ("grushes") that required binding (-0.05s to 0.1s), which we suggest reflects an expectation of binding to occur. Second, following the presentation of the target word (around 0.15s to 0.25s), during syntactic binding we observed significantly decreased alpha phase-locking between the left inferior frontal gyrus and the left middle/inferior temporal cortex. We suggest that this results from alpha-driven cortical disinhibition serving to increase information transfer between these two brain regions and strengthen the syntax composition neural network. Together, our findings highlight that successful syntax composition is underscored by the rapid spatial-temporal activation and coordination of language-relevant brain regions, and that alpha band oscillations are critically important in controlling the allocation and transfer of the brain's resources during syntax composition.

scholarly journals Brain Mechanisms of Arithmetic: A Crucial Role for Ventral Temporal Cortex

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (12) ◽  
pp. 1757-1772 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Pinheiro-Chagas ◽  
Amy Daitch ◽  
Josef Parvizi ◽  
Stanislas Dehaene
Keyword(s):  
Numerical Cognition ◽  
Parietal Lobe ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Classical Problem ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Inferior Temporal Cortex ◽  
Problem Size ◽  
Ventral Temporal Cortex ◽  
Intracranial Electroencephalography ◽  
Problem Size Effect

Elementary arithmetic requires a complex interplay between several brain regions. The classical view, arising from fMRI, is that the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) and the superior parietal lobe (SPL) are the main hubs for arithmetic calculations. However, recent studies using intracranial electroencephalography have discovered a specific site, within the posterior inferior temporal cortex (pITG), that activates during visual perception of numerals, with widespread adjacent responses when numerals are used in calculation. Here, we reexamined the contribution of the IPS, SPL, and pITG to arithmetic by recording intracranial electroencephalography signals while participants solved addition problems. Behavioral results showed a classical problem size effect: RTs increased with the size of the operands. We then examined how high-frequency broadband (HFB) activity is modulated by problem size. As expected from previous fMRI findings, we showed that the total HFB activity in IPS and SPL sites increased with problem size. More surprisingly, pITG sites showed an initial burst of HFB activity that decreased as the operands got larger, yet with a constant integral over the whole trial, thus making these signals invisible to slow fMRI. Although parietal sites appear to have a more sustained function in arithmetic computations, the pITG may have a role of early identification of the problem difficulty, beyond merely digit recognition. Our results ask for a reevaluation of the current models of numerical cognition and reveal that the ventral temporal cortex contains regions specifically engaged in mathematical processing.

scholarly journals Color signals through dorsal and ventral visual pathways

2013 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
BEVIL R. CONWAY
Keyword(s):  
Visual Processing ◽  
Color Space ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Color Perception ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Neural Representation ◽  
Inferior Temporal Cortex ◽  
Extrastriate Cortex ◽  
Chromatic Contrast

AbstractExplanations for color phenomena are often sought in the retina, lateral geniculate nucleus, and V1, yet it is becoming increasingly clear that a complete account will take us further along the visual-processing pathway. Working out which areas are involved is not trivial. Responses to S-cone activation are often assumed to indicate that an area or neuron is involved in color perception. However, work tracing S-cone signals into extrastriate cortex has challenged this assumption: S-cone responses have been found in brain regions, such as the middle temporal (MT) motion area, not thought to play a major role in color perception. Here, we review the processing of S-cone signals across cortex and present original data on S-cone responses measured with fMRI in alert macaque, focusing on one area in which S-cone signals seem likely to contribute to color (V4/posterior inferior temporal cortex) and on one area in which S signals are unlikely to play a role in color (MT). We advance a hypothesis that the S-cone signals in color-computing areas are required to achieve a balanced neural representation of perceptual color space, whereas those in noncolor-areas provide a cue to illumination (not luminance) and confer sensitivity to the chromatic contrast generated by natural daylight (shadows, illuminated by ambient sky, surrounded by direct sunlight). This sensitivity would facilitate the extraction of shape-from-shadow signals to benefit global scene analysis and motion perception.

scholarly journals Comparison of Primate Prefrontal and Premotor Cortex Neuronal Activity during Visual Categorization

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (11) ◽  
pp. 3355-3365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason A. Cromer ◽  
Jefferson E. Roy ◽  
Timothy J. Buschman ◽  
Earl K. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Premotor Cortex ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Motor Planning ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Inferior Temporal Cortex ◽  
Decision Variable ◽  
Final Decision ◽  
Visual Categorization ◽  
Category Information ◽  
Cognitive Problem

Previous work has shown that neurons in the PFC show selectivity for learned categorical groupings. In contrast, brain regions lower in the visual hierarchy, such as inferior temporal cortex, do not seem to favor category information over information about physical appearance. However, the role of premotor cortex (PMC) in categorization has not been studied, despite evidence that PMC is strongly engaged by well-learned tasks and reflects learned rules. Here, we directly compare PFC neurons with PMC neurons during visual categorization. Unlike PFC neurons, relatively few PMC neurons distinguished between categories of visual images during a delayed match-to-category task. However, despite the lack of category information in the PMC, more than half of the neurons in both PFC and PMC reflected whether the category of a test image did or did not match the category of a sample image (i.e., had match information). Thus, PFC neurons represented all variables required to solve the cognitive problem, whereas PMC neurons instead represented only the final decision variable that drove the appropriate motor action required to obtain a reward. This dichotomy fits well with PFC's hypothesized role in learning arbitrary information and directing behavior as well as the PMC's role in motor planning.

scholarly journals Dissociations in Processing Past Tense Morphology: Neuropathology and Behavioral Studies

2002 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorraine K. Tyler ◽  
Paul deMornay-Davies ◽  
Rebekah Anokhina ◽  
Catherine Longworth ◽  
Billi Randall ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Behavioral Data ◽  
Inferior Temporal Cortex ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Inflectional Morphology ◽  
Impaired Performance ◽  
Behavioral Studies ◽  
Linguistic Rules ◽  
Computational Systems

Neuropsychological research showing that the regular (“jump–jumped”) and irregular (“drive/drove”) past tense inflectional morphology can dissociate following brain damage has been important in testing claims about the cognitive and neural status of linguistic rules. These dissociations have been interpreted as evidence for two different computational systems—a rule-based system underlying the processing of regulars and the irregulars being individually listed in the mental lexicon. In contrast, connectionist accounts claim that these dissociations can be modeled within a single system. Combining behavioral data from patients with detailed information about their neuropathology can, in principle, provide strong constraints on accounts of the past tense. In this study, we tested five nonfluent aphasic patients, all of whom had extensive left hemisphere (LH) damage involving the left inferior frontal gyrus and underlying structures, and four patients with semantic deficits following herpes simplex encephalitis (HSE) who had extensive damage to the inferior temporal cortex. These patients were tested in experiments probing past tense processing. In a large priming study, the nonfluent patients showed no priming for the regular past tense but significant priming for the irregulars (whereas controls show priming for both). In contrast, the HSE patients showed significantly impaired performance for the irregulars in an elicitation task. These patterns of behavioral data and neuropathology suggest that two separable but interdependent systems underlie processing of the regular and irregular past tense.

scholarly journals An attempt to replicate a dissociation between syntax and semantics during sentence comprehension reported by Dapretto & Bookheimer (1999, Neuron)

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Siegelman ◽  
Zachary Mineroff ◽  
Idan Blank ◽  
Evelina Fedorenko
Keyword(s):  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Syntactic Processing ◽  
Comparison Task ◽  
Original Result ◽  
Semantic Cues ◽  
Fmri Study ◽  
Syntactic Cues

AbstractDoes processing the meanings of individual words vs. assembling words into phrases and sentences rely on distinct pools of cognitive and neural resources? Many have argued for such a dissociation, although the field is lacking a consensus on which brain region(s) support lexico-semantic vs. syntactic processing. Although some have also argued against such a dissociation, the dominant view in the field remains that distinct brain regions support these two fundamental components of language. One of the earlier and most cited pieces of evidence in favor of this dissociation comes from a paper by Dapretto & Bookheimer (1999, Neuron; DB). Using a sentence meaning comparison task, DB observed two distinct peaks within the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG): one more active when comparisons relied on lexico-semantic cues, and another – when they instead relied on syntactic cues. Although the paper has been highly cited over the years, no attempt has been made, to our knowledge, to replicate the original finding. We here report an fMRI study that attempts to do so. Using a combination of three approaches – whole-brain, group-level ROIs, and individual functional ROIs – we fail to replicate the originally reported dissociation. In particular, parts of the LIFG respond reliably more strongly during lexico-semantic than syntactic processing, but no part of the LIFG (including in the region defined around the peak reported by DB) shows the opposite response pattern. We hypothesize that the original result was a false positive, possibly driven by one participant or item given the use of a fixed-effects analysis and a small number of items (8 per condition) and participants (n=8).

scholarly journals Early and late neural correlates of mentalizing: ALE meta-analyses in adults, children and adolescents

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn V Fehlbaum ◽  
Réka Borbás ◽  
Katharina Paul ◽  
Simon b Eickhoff ◽  
Nora m Raschle
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Children And Adolescents ◽  
Medial Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Inferior Temporal Cortex ◽  
Temporoparietal Junction ◽  
Right Temporoparietal Junction ◽  
Meta Analyses

Abstract The ability to understand mental states of others is referred to as mentalizing and enabled by our Theory of Mind. This social skill relies on brain regions comprising the mentalizing network as robustly observed in adults but also in a growing number of developmental studies. We summarized and compared neuroimaging evidence in children/adolescents and adults during mentalizing using coordinate-based activation likelihood estimation meta-analyses to inform about brain regions consistently or differentially engaged across age categories. Adults (N = 5286) recruited medial prefrontal and middle/inferior frontal cortices, precuneus, temporoparietal junction and middle temporal gyri during mentalizing, which were functionally connected to bilateral inferior/superior parietal lobule and thalamus/striatum. Conjunction and contrast analyses revealed that children and adolescents (N = 479) recruit similar but fewer regions within core mentalizing regions. Subgroup analyses revealed an early continuous engagement of middle medial prefrontal cortex, precuneus and right temporoparietal junction in younger children (8–11 years) and adolescents (12–18 years). Adolescents additionally recruited the left temporoparietal junction and middle/inferior temporal cortex. Overall, the observed engagement of the medial prefrontal cortex, precuneus and right temporoparietal junction during mentalizing across all ages reflects an early specialization of some key regions of the social brain.

scholarly journals Neural tracking of speech mental imagery during rhythmic inner counting

eLife ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lingxi Lu ◽  
Qian Wang ◽  
Jingwei Sheng ◽  
Zhaowei Liu ◽  
Lang Qin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Imagery ◽  
Auditory Perception ◽  
Processing Time ◽  
Human Subjects ◽  
Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Neural Processing ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Rate Frequency

The subjective inner experience of mental imagery is among the most ubiquitous human experiences in daily life. Elucidating the neural implementation underpinning the dynamic construction of mental imagery is critical to understanding high-order cognitive function in the human brain. Here, we applied a frequency-tagging method to isolate the top-down process of speech mental imagery from bottom-up sensory-driven activities and concurrently tracked the neural processing time scales corresponding to the two processes in human subjects. Notably, by estimating the source of the magnetoencephalography (MEG) signals, we identified isolated brain networks activated at the imagery-rate frequency. In contrast, more extensive brain regions in the auditory temporal cortex were activated at the stimulus-rate frequency. Furthermore, intracranial stereotactic electroencephalogram (sEEG) evidence confirmed the participation of the inferior frontal gyrus in generating speech mental imagery. Our results indicate that a disassociated neural network underlies the dynamic construction of speech mental imagery independent of auditory perception.

Altered fractional amplitude of low frequency fluctuation in Women with Premenstrual Syndrome Via Acupuncture at Sanyinjiao(SP6)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaoxiong Duan ◽  
Ya Chen ◽  
Yong Pang ◽  
Zhuo Feng ◽  
Hai Liao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Trial ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Premenstrual Syndrome ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Inferior Temporal Cortex ◽  
Frequency Fluctuation ◽  
Clinical Trial Registration ◽  
Acupuncture Stimulation

Abstract Background: Premenstrual Syndrome(PMS) is a prevalent gynecological disease and is significantly associated with abnormal neural activity. Acupuncture is an effective treatment on PMS in clinical practice. However, few studies have been performed to investigate whether acupuncture might modulate the abnormal neural activity in patients with PMS. Thereby, the aim of the study was to assess alterations of the brain activity induced by acupuncture stimulation in PMS patients. Methods: 20 PMS patients were enrolled in this study. All patients received a 6-min resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging(rs-fMRI) scan before and after electro-acupuncturing stimulation (EAS) at Sanyinjiao (SP6) acupoint in the late luteal phase of menstrual. Applied the fractional amplitude of low frequency fluctuation(fALFF) method to examine EAS-related brain changes in PMS patients. Results: Compared with pre-EAS at SP6, increased fALFF value in several brain regions induced by SP6, including brainstem, right thalamus, bilateral insula, right paracentral lobule, bilateral cerebellum, meanwhile, decreased fALFF in the left cuneus, right precuneus, left inferior temporal cortex. Conclusions: Our findings provide imaging evidence to support that SP6-related acupuncture stimulation may modulate the neural activity in patients with PMS. This study may partly interpret the neural mechanisms of acupuncture at SP6 which is used to treat PMS patients in clinical. Trial registration:The study was registered on http://www.chictr.org.cn, the Clinical Trial Registration Number is ChiCTR-OPC-15005918, registry in 29/01/2015.

scholarly journals Developmental Increase in Top–Down and Bottom–Up Processing in a Phonological Task: An Effective Connectivity, fMRI Study

2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 1135-1145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tali Bitan ◽  
Jimmy Cheon ◽  
Dong Lu ◽  
Douglas D. Burman ◽  
James R. Booth
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Effective Connectivity ◽  
Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Control Process ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Task Irrelevant

We examined age-related changes in the interactions among brain regions in children performing rhyming judgments on visually presented words. The difficulty of the task was manipulated by including a conflict between task-relevant (phonological) information and task-irrelevant (orthographic) information. The conflicting conditions included pairs of words that rhyme despite having different spelling patterns (jazz–has), or words that do not rhyme despite having similar spelling patterns (pint–mint). These were contrasted with nonconflicting pairs that have similar orthography and phonology (dime–lime) or different orthography and phonology (press–list). Using fMRI, we examined effective connectivity among five left hemisphere regions of interest: fusiform gyrus (FG), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), intraparietal sulcus (IPS), lateral temporal cortex (LTC), and medial frontal gyrus (MeFG). Age-related increases were observed in the influence of the IFG and FG on the LTC, but only in conflicting conditions. These results reflect a developmental increase in the convergence of bottom–up and top–down information on the LTC. In older children, top–down control process may selectively enhance the sensitivity of the LTC to bottom–up information from the FG. This may be evident especially in situations that require selective enhancement of task-relevant versus task-irrelevant information. Altogether these results provide a direct evidence for a developmental increase in top–down control processes in language processing. The developmental increase in bottom–up processing may be secondary to the enhancement of top–down processes.

scholarly journals Witnessed apneas are associated with elevated tau-PET levels in cognitively unimpaired elderly

Neurology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 94 (17) ◽  
pp. e1793-e1802 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Z. Carvalho ◽  
Erik K. St. Louis ◽  
Christopher G. Schwarz ◽  
Val J. Lowe ◽  
Bradley F. Boeve ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Linear Models ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Standardized Uptake Value ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Population Based ◽  
Inferior Temporal Cortex ◽  
Elderly Persons ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Tau Pet ◽  
Close Relatives

ObjectiveTo assess whether informant-reported apneas during sleep (witnessed apneas) in cognitively unimpaired (CU) elderly persons are associated with higher levels of brain tau.MethodsFrom the population-based Mayo Clinic Study of Aging, we identified 292 CU elderly ≥65 years of age with both AV-1451 tau-PET and Pittsburgh compound B (PiB)-PET scans and whose bed partners and close relatives had completed a questionnaire that assessed whether participants had witnessed apneas during sleep. For this cross-sectional analysis, we selected the entorhinal and inferior temporal cortices as our regions of interest (ROIs) because they are highly susceptible to tau accumulation. PET signal was scaled to the cerebellum crus to calculate standardized uptake value ratio (SUVR). We fit linear models to assess the association between regional tau and witnessed apneas while controlling for age, sex, years of education, body mass index, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, reduced sleep, excessive daytime sleepiness, and global PiB.ResultsForty-three participants (14.7%) were found to have witnessed apneas during sleep. The report of witnessed apneas was associated with higher tau-PET SUVR elevation in our ROIs: 0.049 SUVR (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.010–0.087, p = 0.015) in the entorhinal cortex and 0.037 SUVR (95% CI 0.006–0.067, p = 0.019) in the inferior temporal cortex after controlling for confounders.ConclusionWe identified a significant association between witnessed apneas in CU elderly and elevated tau-PET signal in tau-susceptible brain regions. These results suggest a plausible mechanism that could contribute to cognitive impairment and the development of Alzheimer disease. Longitudinal observations are necessary to determine direction of causality.

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