Neural encoding and production of functional morphemes in the posterior temporal lobe
Name
s41467-018-04235-3.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
2.49 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Lee, Daniel K
Fedorenko, Evelina
Simon, Mirela V
Curry, William T
Nahed, Brian V
Cahill, Dan P
Williams, Ziv M
Date Issued
2018
Journal
Nature Communications
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Version
Final published version
Abstract
© 2018 The Author(s). Morphemes are the smallest meaning-carrying units in human language, and are among the most basic building blocks through which humans express specific ideas and concepts. By using time-resolved cortical stimulations, neural recordings, and focal lesion evaluations, we show that inhibition of a small cortical area within the left dominant posterior-superior temporal lobe selectively impairs the ability to produce appropriate functional morphemes but does not distinctly affect semantic and lexical retrieval, comprehension, or articulation. Additionally, neural recordings within this area reveal the localized encoding of morphological properties and their planned production prior to speech onset. Finally, small lesions localized to the gray matter in this area result in a selective functional morpheme-production deficit. Collectively, these findings reveal a detailed division of linguistic labor within the posterior-superior temporal lobe and suggest that functional morpheme processing constitutes an operationally discrete step in the series of computations essential to language production.
MIT Department
McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT
Harvard University--MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/S41467-018-04235-3
