TDCS to premotor cortex changes action verb understanding: Complementary effects of inhibitory and excitatory stimulation.

ABSTRACT: Processing the meaning of action language correlates with somatotopic activity in premotor cortex (PMC). A previous neurostimulation study supported a causal contribution of PMC activity to action verb understanding, but the direction of the effect was unexpected: inhibiting PMC made participants respond faster to action verbs. Here we investigated the effects of PMC excitation and inhibition on action verb understanding using tDCS. Right-handed participants received tDCS stimulation with the anodal electrode (presumed to be excitatory) and cathodal electrode (presumed to be inhibitory) placed over left and right PMC, respectively, or with the reverse configuration. After completing the stimulation protocol, participants made lexical decisions on unimanual action verbs (e.g., throw) and ab

SUBMITTER: Gijssels T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6065381 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature