Differing contributions of inferior prefrontal and anterior temporal cortex to concrete and abstract conceptual knowledge.

ABSTRACT: Semantic cognition is underpinned by regions involved in representing conceptual knowledge and executive control areas that provide regulation of this information according to current task requirements. Using distortion-corrected fMRI, we investigated the contributions of these two systems to abstract and concrete word comprehension. We contrasted semantic decisions made either with coherent contextual support, which encouraged retrieval of a rich conceptual representation, or with irrelevant contextual information, which instead maximised demands on control processes. Inferior prefrontal cortex was activated more when decisions were made in the presence of irrelevant context, suggesting that this region is crucial for the semantic control functions required to select appropriate aspects o

SUBMITTER: Hoffman P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4317194 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature