Open AccessMotor cortex involvement during verbal versus non‐verbal lip and tongue movements
Author(s) -
Salmelin Riitta,
Sams Mikko
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
human brain mapping
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.005
H-Index - 191
eISSN - 1097-0193
pISSN - 1065-9471
DOI - 10.1002/hbm.10031
Subject(s) - psychology , magnetoencephalography , articulation (sociology) , tongue , motor cortex , lateralization of brain function , audiology , superior temporal sulcus , movement (music) , cortex (anatomy) , nonverbal communication , temporal cortex , cognitive psychology , functional magnetic resonance imaging , neuroscience , communication , electroencephalography , medicine , pathology , stimulation , politics , political science , law , philosophy , aesthetics
We evaluated left and right motor cortex involvement during verbal and non‐verbal lip and tongue movements in seven healthy subjects using whole‐head magnetoencephalography. The movements were paced by tone pips. The non‐verbal tasks included a kissing movement and touching the teeth with the tongue. The verbal tasks comprised silent articulation of the Finnish vowel /o/, which requires mouth movement similar to that in the kissing task, pronouncing the same self‐selected word repeatedly, and producing a new word for every tone pip. Motor cortex involvement was quantified by task‐related suppression and subsequent rebound of the 20‐Hz activity. The modulation concentrated to two sites along the central sulcus, identified as the motor face and hand representations. The 20‐Hz suppression in the face area was relatively similar during all tasks. The post‐movement rebound, however, was significantly left‐lateralized during word production. In the non‐verbal tasks, hand areas showed pronounced suppression of 20‐Hz activity that was significantly diminished for the verbal tasks. The latencies of the 20‐Hz suppression in the left and right face representations were correlated across subjects during verbal mouth movements. Increasing linguistic content of lip and tongue movements was thus manifested in spatially more focal motor cortex involvement, left‐hemisphere lateralization of face area activation, and correlated timing across hemispheres. Hum. Brain Mapping 16:81–91, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.