Cometa Andrea, d'Orio Piergiorgio, Revay Martina, Bottoni Franco, Repetto Claudia, Russo Giorgio Lo, Cappa Stefano F, Moro Andrea, Micera Silvestro, Artoni Fiorenzo
The BioRobotics Institute and Department of Excellence in Robotics and AI, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Viale Rinaldo Piaggio 34, Pontedera 56025, Italy.
Scuola Universitaria Superiore IUSS, Piazza della Vittoria 15, Pavia 27100, Italy.
J Neural Eng. 2023 May 2;20(2). doi: 10.1088/1741-2552/accaa8.
Syntax involves complex neurobiological mechanisms, which are difficult to disentangle for multiple reasons. Using a protocol able to separate syntactic information from sound information we investigated the neural causal connections evoked by the processing of homophonous phrases, i.e. with the same acoustic information but with different syntactic content. These could be either verb phrases (VP) or noun phrases.. We used event-related causality from stereo-electroencephalographic recordings in ten epileptic patients in multiple cortical and subcortical areas, including language areas and their homologous in the non-dominant hemisphere. The recordings were made while the subjects were listening to the homophonous phrases.We identified the different networks involved in the processing of these syntactic operations (faster in the dominant hemisphere) showing that VPs engage a wider cortical and subcortical network. We also present a proof-of-concept for the decoding of the syntactic category of a perceived phrase based on causality measures.. Our findings help unravel the neural correlates of syntactic elaboration and show how a decoding based on multiple cortical and subcortical areas could contribute to the development of speech prostheses for speech impairment mitigation.
句法涉及复杂的神经生物学机制，由于多种原因，这些机制难以理清。我们使用一种能够将句法信息与声音信息分离的方案，研究了同音异义词组处理所引发的神经因果联系，即具有相同声学信息但句法内容不同的词组。这些词组可以是动词短语（VP）或名词短语。我们利用来自10名癫痫患者在多个皮质和皮质下区域（包括语言区域及其在非优势半球的对应区域）的立体脑电图记录中的事件相关因果关系。记录是在受试者听同音异义词组时进行的。我们确定了参与这些句法操作处理的不同网络（在优势半球中更快），表明动词短语涉及更广泛的皮质和皮质下网络。我们还展示了基于因果关系测量对感知词组的句法类别进行解码的概念验证。我们的研究结果有助于揭示句法加工的神经关联，并展示基于多个皮质和皮质下区域的解码如何有助于开发减轻言语障碍的言语假体。
