Brain regions that represent amodal conceptual knowledge

To what extent do the brain regions implicated in semantic processing contribute to the representation of amodal conceptual content rather than modality-specific mechanisms or mechanisms of semantic access and manipulation? Here, we propose that a brain region can be considered to represent amodal c...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of neuroscience 2013-06, Vol.33 (25), p.10552-10558
Main Authors: Fairhall, Scott L, Caramazza, Alfonso
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Analysis of Variance
Brain - physiology
Brain Mapping
Cerebral Cortex - physiology
Female
Humans
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
Judgment - physiology
Knowledge
Linear Models
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Psychomotor Performance - physiology
Reaction Time - physiology
Semantics
Young Adult
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Summary:To what extent do the brain regions implicated in semantic processing contribute to the representation of amodal conceptual content rather than modality-specific mechanisms or mechanisms of semantic access and manipulation? Here, we propose that a brain region can be considered to represent amodal conceptual object knowledge if it is supramodal and plays a role in distinguishing among the conceptual representations of different objects. In an fMRI study, human participants made category typicality judgments about pictured objects or their names drawn from five different categories. Crossmodal multivariate pattern analysis revealed a network of six left-lateralized regions largely outside of category-selective visual cortex that showed a supramodal representation of object categories. These were located in the posterior middle/inferior temporal gyrus (pMTG/ITG), angular gyrus, ventral temporal cortex, posterior cingulate/precuneus (PC), and lateral and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. Representational similarity analysis within these regions determined that the similarity between category-specific patterns of neural activity in the pMTG/ITG and the PC was consistent with the semantic similarity between these categories. This finding supports the PC and pMTG/ITG as candidate regions for the amodal representation of the conceptual properties of objects.
ISSN:0270-6474
1529-2401
1529-2401
DOI:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0051-13.2013