N400-like Magnetoencephalography Responses Modulated by Semantic Context, Word Frequency, and Lexical Class in Sentences

doi:10.1006/nimg.2002.1268

NeuroImage

Volume 17, Issue 3, November 2002, Pages 1101-1116

https://doi.org/10.1006/nimg.2002.1268 Get rights and content

Abstract

Words have been found to elicit a negative potential at the scalp peaking at ∼400 ms that is strongly modulated by semantic context. The current study used whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG) as male subjects read sentences ending with semantically congruous or incongruous words. Compared with congruous words, sentence-terminal incongruous words consistently evoked a large magnetic field over the left hemisphere, peaking at ∼450 ms. Source modeling at this latency with conventional equivalent current dipoles (ECDs) placed the N400m generator in or near the left superior temporal sulcus. A distributed solution constrained to the cortical surface suggested a sequence of differential activation, beginning in Wernicke's area at ∼250 ms, spreading to anterior temporal sites at ∼270 ms, to Broca's area by ∼300 ms, to dorsolateral prefrontal cortices by ∼320 ms, and to anterior orbital and frontopolar cortices by ∼370 ms. Differential activity was exclusively left-sided until >370 ms, and then involved right anterior temporal and orbital cortices. At the peak of the N400m, activation in the left hemisphere was estimated to be widespread in the anterior temporal, perisylvian, orbital, frontopolar, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices. In the right hemisphere, the orbital, as well as, weakly, the right anterior temporal cortices were activated. Similar but weaker field patterns were evoked by intermediate words in the sentences, especially to low-frequency words occurring in early sentence positions where there is little preceding context. The locations of the N400m sources identified with the distributed solution correspond well with those previously demonstrated with direct intracranial recordings, and suggested by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). These results help identify a distributed cortical network that supports online semantic processing.

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¹: To whom correspondence should be addressed at Massachusetts General Hospital Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Center, Room 2301, Building 149, 13th Street, Charlestown, MA 02129. Fax: (617) 726-7422. E-mail: [email protected].

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Regular ArticleN400-like Magnetoencephalography Responses Modulated by Semantic Context, Word Frequency, and Lexical Class in Sentences

Abstract

Electroencephalogr. Clin. Neurophysiol.

Curr. Opin. Neurobiol.

NeuroImage

Neuron

Neuropsychologia

NeuroImage

Brain Lang.

J. Physiol. (Paris)

J. Physiol. (Paris)

Brain Cogn.

Brain Cogn.

Neurosci. Res.

Neurosci. Lett.

Trends Cogn. Sci.

Neuropsychologia

Electroencephalogr. Clin. Neurophysiol.

Neuropsychologia

Brain Lang.

Neuropsychologia

Brain Res. Brain Res. Rev.

Brain Res.

Electroencephalogr. Clin. Neurophysiol.

Neuropsychologia

Brain Cogn.

122-channel SQUID instrument for investigating the magnetic signals from the human brain

Phys. Scr. T

Improved localization of cortical activity by combining EEG and MEG with MRI cortical surface reconstruction: A linear approach

J. Cogn. Neurosci.

A linear discretization of the volume conductor boundary integral equation using analytically integrated elements

IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng.

Spatiotemporal maps of brain activity underlying word generation and their modification during repetition priming

J. Neurosci.

Event-related potentials of verbal encoding into episodic memory: Dissociation between the effects of subsequent memory performance and distinctiveness

Psychophysiology

High-resolution intersubject averaging and a coordinate system for the cortical surface

Hum. Brain Mapp.

The search for “common sense”: An electrophysiological study of the comprehension of words and pictures in reading

J. Cogn. Neurosci.

Limbic ERPs predict verbal memory after left-sided hippocampectomy

NeuroReport

Intracranial topography of event-related potentials (N400/P600) elicited during a continuous recognition memory task

Psychophysiology

Regular Article
N400-like Magnetoencephalography Responses Modulated by Semantic Context, Word Frequency, and Lexical Class in Sentences