Effortful verb retrieval from semantic memory drives beta suppression in mesial frontal regions involved in action initiation.

ABSTRACT: The contribution of the motor cortex to the semantic retrieval of verbs remains a subject of debate in neuroscience. Here, we examined whether additional engagement of the cortical motor system was required when access to verbs semantics was hindered during a verb generation task. We asked participants to produce verbs related to presented noun cues that were either strongly associated with a single verb to prompt fast and effortless verb retrieval, or were weakly associated with multiple verbs and more difficult to respond to. Using power suppression of magnetoencephalography beta oscillations (15-30 Hz) as an index of cortical activation, we performed a whole-brain analysis in order to identify the cortical regions sensitive to the difficulty of verb semantic retrieval. Highly reliable s

SUBMITTER: Pavlova AA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6865819 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature