An intracerebral exploration of functional connectivity during word production

AbstractLanguage is mediated by pathways connecting distant brain regions that have diverse functional roles. For word production, the network includes a ventral pathway, connecting temporal and inferior frontal regions, and a dorsal pathway, connecting parietal and frontal regions. Despite the importance of word production for scientific and clinical purposes, the functional connectivity underlying this task has received relatively limited attention, and mostly from techniques limited in either spatial or temporal resolution. Here, we exploited data obtained from depth intra-cerebral electrodes stereotactically implanted in eight epileptic patients. The signal was recorded directly from various structures of the neocortex with high spatial and temporal resolution. The neurophysiological activity elicited by a picture naming task was analyzed in the time-frequency domain (10 –150 Hz), and functional connectivity between brain areas among ten regions of interest was examined. Task related-activities detected within a network of the regions of interest were consistent with findings in the literature, showing task-evoked desynchronization in the beta band and synchroniza tion in the gamma band. Surprisingly, long-range functional connectivity was not particularly stronger in the beta than in the high-gamma band. The latter revealed meaningful sub-networks involving, notably, the temporal pole and the inferior frontal gyrus (ventral pathway), and parietal regions and inferior f...
Source: Journal of Computational Neuroscience - Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research