Poster E48, Thursday, August 22, 2019, 3:45 – 5:30 pm, Restaurant Hall
The Neural Basis of Semantic Cognition in Mandarin Chinese: a combined fMRI and TMS study
Qian Zhang12, Hui Wang1, Cimei Luo1, Junjun Zhang1, Zhenlan Jin1, Ling Li1;1Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, High-Field Magnetic Resonance Brain Imaging Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Center for Information in Medicine, School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, 2Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu
While converging sources of evidence point to the possibility of a large scale distributed network for semantic cognition, a consensus regarding the underlying subregions and their specific function in this network has not been reached. In the current study, we combined functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) methodology to investigate the neural basis of semantic cognition in Mandarin Chinese. In the fMRI experiment, strong activations were observed in left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and left middle temporal gyrus (MTG) for semantic judgment task, coupling with significant functional connectivity between these regions. Meanwhile, functional connectivity strength between left IFG and left MTG revealed significant correlation with performance in semantic judgment task. Subsequent TMS stimulation over left IFG resulted in performance deficits in semantic judgment task, in contrast to other three sites: left MTG, right intraparietal sulcus (IPS) and a control site. We proposed that the neural basis of semantic processing for Mandarin Chinese closely resembled that for alphabetic languages such as English, supporting a language-universal view on semantic cognition.
Themes: Language Production, Meaning: Lexical Semantics
Method: Functional Imaging