title: Causal Influence of Articulatory Motor Cortex on Comprehending Single Spoken Words: TMS Evidence.
abstract: Classic wisdom had been that motor and premotor cortex contribute to motor execution but not to higher cognition and language comprehension. In contrast, mounting evidence from neuroimaging, patient research, and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) suggest sensorimotor interaction and, specifically, that the articulatory motor cortex is important for classifying meaningless speech sounds into phonemic categories. However, whether these findings speak to the comprehension issue is unclear, because language comprehension does not require explicit phonemic classification and previous results may therefore relate to factors alien to semantic understanding. We here used the standard psycholinguistic test of spoken word comprehension, the word-to-picture-matching task, and concordant TMS to articulatory motor cortex. TMS pulses were applied to primary motor cortex controlling either the lips or the tongue as subjects heard critical word stimuli starting with bilabial lip-related or alveolar tongue-related stop consonants (e.g., "pool" or "tool"). A significant cross-over interaction showed that articulatory motor cortex stimulation delayed comprehension responses for phonologically incongruent words relative to congruous ones (i.e., lip area TMS delayed "tool" relative to "pool" responses). As local TMS to articulatory motor areas differentially delays the comprehension of phonologically incongruous spoken words, we conclude that motor systems can take a causal role in semantic comprehension and, hence, higher cognition.
authors.affiliation: Brain Language Laboratory, Department of Philosophy and Humanities, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 10099 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Malte R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Schomers
authors.affiliation: Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Evgeniya
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kirilina
authors.affiliation: Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany Department of Psychiatry, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, 14050 Berlin, Germany Berenson-Allen Center for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Weigand
authors.affiliation: Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany Department of Psychiatry, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, 14050 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Malek
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bajbouj
authors.affiliation: Brain Language Laboratory, Department of Philosophy and Humanities, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 10099 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Friedemann
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Pulvermüller
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008046:Lip / Q000294:innervation / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014059:Tongue / Q000294:innervation / Q000502:physiology; D050781:Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: action-perception theory; language comprehension; motor system; speech processing; transcranial magnetic stimulation