Distinct neural networks for detecting violations of adjacent versus nonadjacent sequential dependencies: An fMRI study.

Distinct neural networks for detecting violations of adjacent versus nonadjacent sequential dependencies: An fMRI study. Neurobiol Learn Mem. 2020 Feb 01;:107175 Authors: Conway CM, Eghbalzad L, Deocampo JA, Smith GNL, Na S, King TZ Abstract The ability to learn and process sequential dependencies is essential for language acquisition and other cognitive domains. Recent studies suggest that the learning of adjacent (e.g., "A-B") versus nonadjacent (e.g., "A-X-B") dependencies have different cognitive demands, but the neural correlates accompanying such processing are currently underspecified. We developed a sequential learning task in which sequences of printed nonsense syllables containing both adjacent and nonadjacent dependencies were presented. After incidentally learning these grammatical sequences, twenty-one healthy adults (age M=22.1, 12 females) made familiarity judgments about novel grammatical sequences and ungrammatical sequences containing violations of the adjacent or nonadjacent structure while in a 3T MRI scanner. Violations of adjacent dependencies were associated with increased BOLD activation in both posterior (lateral occipital and angular gyrus) as well as frontal regions (e.g., medial frontal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus). Initial results indicated no regions showing significant BOLD activations for the violations of nonadjacent dependencies. However, when using a less stringent cluster threshold, exploratory a...
Source: Neurobiology of Learning and Memory - Category: Neurology Authors: Tags: Neurobiol Learn Mem Source Type: research