title: Different activity patterns for action and language within their shared neural areas: An fMRI study on action observation and language phonology.
abstract: The neural processes for action and language activate shared brain regions including the left inferior frontal, parietal and temporal-occipital cortices. However, it still remains unclear how action and language are related and what neural activity patterns are elicited within these shared cortical regions. In this study we examined the neural activation for action observation and language phonology in their shared cortical regions by conducting three experiments in a single fMRI session: a mixed-task experiment involving both action and language phonological processing, and two independent experiments involving language phonology and action observation respectively. To control for differences in the visual processing and to enable a direct comparison between the tasks, the same visual stimuli were used for the mixed-tasks. Common neural areas for action observation and language phonology were located in the junction of the left inferior frontal/precentral gyrus, the left intraparietal sulcus and the left temporal-occipital cortex. Nevertheless, multi-voxel pattern analysis on the shared neural areas revealed that different patterns of neural activity were elicited for the action and language phonological tasks. Our results provide the first neuroimaging evidence that the common neural structures are engaged differently by action and language phonological processing.
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai, PR China.
authors.forename: Zuo
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai, PR China. Electronic address: yaoru@tongji.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Yaoru
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
authors.forename: Glyn W
authors.initials: GW
authors.lastname: Humphreys
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai, PR China; Complex Intelligent Network Institute, Henan University, Kaifeng, Henan, PR China.
authors.forename: Yalin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Song
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011930:Reaction Time; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Action; Functional MRI; Language; Multi-voxel pattern analysis