RT info:eu-repo/semantics/article
T1 The neural inhibition network is causally involved in the disembodiment effect of linguistic negation
A1 Vitale, Francesca
A1 Monti, Ilaria
A1 Padrón González, Iván
A1 Avenanti, Alessio
A1 Vega Rodríguez, Manuel de
K1 Embodied cognition
K1 Negation
K1 Action-language
K1 Inhibition
K1 Transcranial magnetic stimulation
K1 Transcranial magnetic stimulation
AB Negation applied to action contexts reduces the activation of the motor system. According to the Reusing Inhibition for Negation (RIN) hypothesis, such “disembodiment” effect occurs because understanding negations engages the reuse of inhibitory control mechanisms. Here, we investigated whether the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) – a key area of the inhibitory control system – contributes to primary motor cortex (M1) processing of negated action-sentences. Using a perturb-and-measure paradigm, we applied off-line low-frequency repetitive TMS (rTMS) over the rIFG, before performing a reading task involving action and attentional sentences presented in both affirmative or negative form. During the reading task, motor excitability was assessed by recording motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) induced by single-pulse TMS (spTMS) over the left M1, at two loci in the sentence: the verb or the object. Results show that after sham stimulation (baseline), motor excitability measured on the verb, was reduced for negative, compared to affirmative action sentences. Crucially, neuromodulation of rIFG suppressed this inhibitory effect of negation, since motor excitability was equaled for negative and affirmative action sentences. As expected, no effect of negation was observed for attentional sentences or when the pulse was delivered over the object. Our study confirms that understanding negative action sentences inhibits M1. This effect took place at an early stage of semantic processing (i.e., while processing the verb in our task), and faded at a later time-point. Critically, by highlighting a causal role of rIFG in this motor inhibition, we provide direct neurophysiological support to the RIN hypothesis.
YR 2022
FD 2022
LK http://riull.ull.es/xmlui/handle/915/35597
UL http://riull.ull.es/xmlui/handle/915/35597
LA en
DS Repositorio institucional de la Universidad de La Laguna
RD 08-ene-2025