Left hemispheric α band cerebral oscillatory changes correlate with verbal memory

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 10; no. 1; p. 14993
• Main Authors: Araki, Toshihiko, Watanabe, Yoshiyuki, Hirata, Masayuki
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 14.09.2020; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 631/378; 692/617; Adult; Brain - diagnostic imaging; Brain - physiology; Female; Frontal gyrus; Hemispheric laterality; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Language; Linguistics; Magnetic fields; Magnetoencephalography; Male; Medical imaging; Memory; Memory - physiology; multidisciplinary; Nontherapeutic Human Experimentation; Postcentral gyrus; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Speech; Wechsler Memory Scale
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-72087-3

Event-related synchronisation (ERS) and event-related desynchronisation (ERD) have been observed via magnetoencephalography (MEG) in the language-dominant hemisphere. However, the relationship between ERS/ERD and clinical language indices is unclear. Therefore, the present study evaluated brain activity utilising MEG during a verb generation task in 36 subjects and determined ERS/ERD power values in θ, α, β, low γ and high γ frequency bands. To measure clinical language indices, we adopted Wechsler Memory Scale-revised. We observed ERD in the α band from the bilateral occipital to the left central brain region, in the β band from the bilateral occipital to the left frontal region and in the low γ band a high-power signal in the left frontal region. We also observed ERS in the θ band in bilateral frontal region and in the high γ band in bilateral occipital region. Furthermore, we found a significant negative correlation between α-band ERD power at the left postcentral gyrus and medial superior frontal gyrus and verbal memory score (correlation coefficients =  − 0.574 and − 0.597, respectively). These results suggest that individuals with lower linguistic memory have less desynchronised α-band ERD power and α-band ERD power in the left hemisphere may be a neurophysiological biomarker for verbal memory.