Ntemou Effrosyni, Svaldi Cheyenne, Jonkers Roel, Picht Thomas, Rofes Adrià
International Doctorate for Experimental Approaches to Language and Brain (IDEALAB), University of Groningen (NL), University of Potsdam (DE), Newcastle University (UK), Macquarie University (AU), the Netherlands; Centre for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG), University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands; Department of Neurosurgery, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
International Doctorate for Experimental Approaches to Language and Brain (IDEALAB), University of Groningen (NL), University of Potsdam (DE), Newcastle University (UK), Macquarie University (AU), the Netherlands; Centre for Language and Cognition Groningen (CLCG), University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands.
Cortex. 2023 May;162:38-55. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2023.01.005. Epub 2023 Feb 5.
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has provided relevant evidence regarding the neural correlates of language. The aim of the present study is to summarize and assess previous findings regarding linguistic levels (i.e., semantic and morpho-syntactic) and brain structures utilized during verb and sentence processing. To do that, we systematically reviewed TMS research on verb and sentence processing in healthy speakers, and meta-analyzed TMS-induced effects according to the region of stimulation and experimental manipulation. Findings from 45 articles show that approximately half of the reviewed work focuses on the embodiment of action verbs. The majority of studies (60%) target only one cortical region in relation to a specific linguistic process. Frontal areas are most frequently stimulated in connection to morphosyntactic processes and action verb semantics, and temporoparietal regions in relation to integration of sentential meaning and thematic role assignment. A meta-analysis of 72 effect sizes of the reviewed papers indicates that TMS has a small overall effect size, but effect sizes for anterior compared to posterior regions do not differ for semantic or morphosyntactic contrasts. Our findings stress the need to increase the number of targeted areas, while using the same linguistic contrasts in order to disentangle the contributions of different cortical regions to distinct linguistic processes.
经颅磁刺激（TMS）为语言的神经关联提供了相关证据。本研究的目的是总结和评估先前关于语言水平（即语义和形态句法）以及动词和句子处理过程中所涉及的脑结构的研究结果。为此，我们系统回顾了健康受试者中关于动词和句子处理的TMS研究，并根据刺激区域和实验操作对TMS诱导效应进行了荟萃分析。45篇文章的研究结果表明，大约一半的综述工作聚焦于动作动词的具身化。大多数研究（60%）仅针对与特定语言过程相关的一个皮质区域。在与形态句法过程和动作动词语义相关的研究中，额叶区域受到的刺激最为频繁，而在与句子意义整合和主题角色分配相关的研究中，颞顶叶区域受到的刺激最为频繁。对综述论文的72个效应量进行的荟萃分析表明，TMS的总体效应量较小，但在前部区域与后部区域之间，语义或形态句法对比的效应量并无差异。我们的研究结果强调，需要增加目标区域的数量，同时使用相同的语言对比，以便厘清不同皮质区域对不同语言过程的贡献。
