Oscillatory neuronal activity reflects lexical-semantic feature integration within and across sensory modalities in distributed cortical networks

TY - JOUR

T1 - Oscillatory neuronal activity reflects lexical-semantic feature integration within and across sensory modalities in distributed cortical networks

AU - van Ackeren, Markus J

AU - Schneider, Till R

AU - Müsch, Kathrin

AU - Rueschemeyer, Shirley-Ann

N1 - Copyright © 2014 the authors 0270-6474/14/3314318-06$15.00/0.

PY - 2014

Y1 - 2014

N2 - Research from the previous decade suggests that word meaning is partially stored in distributed modality-specific cortical networks. However, little is known about the mechanisms by which semantic content from multiple modalities is integrated into a coherent multisensory representation. Therefore we aimed to characterize differences between integration of lexical-semantic information from a single modality compared with two sensory modalities. We used magnetoencephalography in humans to investigate changes in oscillatory neuronal activity while participants verified two features for a given target word (e.g., "bus"). Feature pairs consisted of either two features from the same modality (visual: "red," "big") or different modalities (auditory and visual: "red," "loud"). The results suggest that integrating modality-specific features of the target word is associated with enhanced high-frequency power (80-120 Hz), while integrating features from different modalities is associated with a sustained increase in low-frequency power (2-8 Hz). Source reconstruction revealed a peak in the anterior temporal lobe for low-frequency and high-frequency effects. These results suggest that integrating lexical-semantic knowledge at different cortical scales is reflected in frequency-specific oscillatory neuronal activity in unisensory and multisensory association networks.

AB - Research from the previous decade suggests that word meaning is partially stored in distributed modality-specific cortical networks. However, little is known about the mechanisms by which semantic content from multiple modalities is integrated into a coherent multisensory representation. Therefore we aimed to characterize differences between integration of lexical-semantic information from a single modality compared with two sensory modalities. We used magnetoencephalography in humans to investigate changes in oscillatory neuronal activity while participants verified two features for a given target word (e.g., "bus"). Feature pairs consisted of either two features from the same modality (visual: "red," "big") or different modalities (auditory and visual: "red," "loud"). The results suggest that integrating modality-specific features of the target word is associated with enhanced high-frequency power (80-120 Hz), while integrating features from different modalities is associated with a sustained increase in low-frequency power (2-8 Hz). Source reconstruction revealed a peak in the anterior temporal lobe for low-frequency and high-frequency effects. These results suggest that integrating lexical-semantic knowledge at different cortical scales is reflected in frequency-specific oscillatory neuronal activity in unisensory and multisensory association networks.

KW - Acoustic Stimulation

KW - Adolescent

KW - Adult

KW - Auditory Cortex

KW - Biological Clocks

KW - Cerebral Cortex

KW - Female

KW - Humans

KW - Magnetoencephalography

KW - Male

KW - Nerve Net

KW - Photic Stimulation

KW - Semantics

KW - Visual Cortex

KW - Young Adult

U2 - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0958-14.2014

DO - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0958-14.2014

M3 - SCORING: Journal article

C2 - 25339744

VL - 34

SP - 14318

EP - 14323

JO - J NEUROSCI

JF - J NEUROSCI

SN - 0270-6474

IS - 43

ER -