Neural representation of verb meaning: An fMRI study

• Published in: Human brain mapping Vol. 15; no. 2; pp. 124 - 134
• Main Authors: Grossman, Murray, Koenig, Phyllis, DeVita, Chris, Glosser, Guila, Alsop, David, Detre, John, Gee, James
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.02.2002; Wiley-Liss
• Subjects: Adult; Behavior - physiology; Biological and medical sciences; Brain Mapping; category-specific; Cerebral Cortex - anatomy & histology; Cerebral Cortex - physiology; Emotions - physiology; Female; fMRI; Functional Laterality - physiology; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Language; Language Tests; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Nerve Net - physiology; Original; Production and perception of spoken language; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Reaction Time - physiology; Reading; semantic; verb; Verbal Behavior - physiology; Human; Motion; Verbal comprehension; Knowledge representation; Cognition; Temporal cortex; Prefrontal cortex; Nuclear magnetic resonance imaging; Recruitment; Semantics; Occipital cortex; Young adult; Medical imagery
• ISSN: 1065-9471; 1097-0193
• DOI: 10.1002/hbm.10117

The neural basis for verb comprehension has proven elusive, in part because of the limited range of verb categories that have been assessed. In the present study, 16 healthy young adults were probed for the meaning associated with verbs of MOTION and verbs of COGNITION. We observed distinct patterns of activation for each verb subcategory: MOTION verbs are associated with recruitment of left ventral temporal‐occipital cortex, bilateral prefrontal cortex and caudate, whereas COGNITION verbs are associated with left posterolateral temporal activation. These findings are consistent with the claim that the neural representations of verb subcategories are distinct. Although the “sensory‐motor” hypothesis may play a role in explaining activation associated with MOTION verbs, the left posterolateral temporal distribution of cortical activation associated with COGNITION verbs cannot be easily explained by the “sensory‐motor” hypothesis. We suggest that left posterolateral temporal activation supports aspects of lexical semantic processing concerned with the neural representation of propositional knowledge contributing to COGNITION verbs. Hum. Brain Mapping 15:124–134, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.