Imaging studies of semantic memory

Current Opinion in Neurology

Volumn 21, Issue 6, 2008, Pages 669-675

  Cappa, Stefano F ^a,b,c  

^a VITA SALUTE SAN RAFFAELE UNIVERSITY   (Italy)

^b National Institute of Neuroscience   (Italy)

^c San Raffaele Scientific Institute   (Italy)

Author keywords

Concepts; Priming; Word comprehension

Indexed keywords

BRAIN REGION; COLOR DISCRIMINATION; COMPREHENSION; FUNCTIONAL MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING; HUMAN; KNOWLEDGE; LANGUAGE; MENTAL FUNCTION; MENTAL TASK; NERVE CELL NETWORK; NEUROIMAGING; NEUROPSYCHOLOGY; PERCEPTION; REVIEW; SEMANTIC MEMORY; SEMANTICS; TASK PERFORMANCE; VERBALIZATION; VISUAL STIMULATION;

BRAIN MAPPING; DIAGNOSTIC IMAGING; HUMANS; MEMORY; SEMANTICS;

EID: 56749148283     PISSN: 13507540     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1097/WCO.0b013e328316e6e0     Document Type: Review

References (27)

1. Barsalou LW. Grounded cognition. Annu Rev Psychol 2008; 59:617-645. This is a comprehensive and readable introduction to the 'embodied cognition' literature, one of the hot theoretical topics in cognitive neuroscience. The embodied cognition hypothesis is that cognitive abilities develop as a result of the interaction among sensorimotor capacities, body and environment, and that this nature is reflected by their neural organization.
2. Patterson K, Nestor PJ, Rogers TT. Where do you know what you know? The representation of semantic knowledge in the human brain. Nat Rev Neurosci 2008; 8:976-987.
3. Martin A. The representation of object concepts in the brain. Annu Rev Psychol 2007; 58:25-45. An excellent review of the many studies that have been dedicated to the cerebral correlates of concrete object processing. On this basis, one of the leaders in the field delineates a general model of neural object representation and highlights the areas in need of further research.
4. Mahon BZ, Milleville SC, Negri GAL, et al. Action-related properties shape object representations in the ventral stream. Neuron 2007; 55: 507-520. An elegant combination of state-of-the-art imaging approaches and patient's investigations. The results provide an important theoretical perspective about the interaction of dorsal and ventral streams in the representation of knowledge about tools.
5. Marques JF, Canessa N, Siri S, et al. Conceptual knowledge in the brain: fMRI evidence for a featural organization. Brain Res 2008; 1194:90-99. An attempt to compare directly the processing of category and knowledge type information using the same set of stimuli.
6. Hoenig K, Sim EJ, Bochev V, et al. Conceptual flexibility in the human brain: dynamic recruitment of semantic maps from visual, motor and motion-related areas. J Cogn Neurosci 2008; 20:1799-1814.
7. Simmons WK, Ramjee V, Beauchamp MS, et al. A common neural substrate for perceiving and knowing about color. Neuropsychologia 2007; 45:2802-2810. A straightforward experiment, which compares directly brain activation associated with perceptual and conceptual processing for colour.
8. Canessa N, Borgo F, Cappa SF, et al. The different neural correlates of action and functional knowledge in semantic memory: an FMRI study. Cereb Cortex 2008; 18:740-751. A paradigm aiming at the separation between the brain correlates of motor and functional knowledge about tools.
9. Ebisch SJ, Babiloni C, Del Gratta C, et al. Human neural systems for conceptual knowledge of proper object use: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Cereb Cortex 2007; 17:2744-2751.
10. Assmus A, Giessing C, Weiss PH, Fink GR. Functional interactions during the retrieval of conceptual action knowledge: an fMRI study. J Cogn Neurosci 2007; 19:1004-1012.
11. Esopenko C, Borowsky R, Cummine J, Sarty G. Mapping the semantic homunculus: a functional and behavioural analysis of overt semantic generation. Brain Topogr 2008; 20:89-96.
12. Galati G, Committeri G, Spitoni G, et al. A selective representation of the meaning of actions in the auditory mirror system. Neuroimage 2008; 40:1274-1286. An investigation of the neural correlates of priming effects of action words on action-related sounds. It provides evidence for the automatic activation of action knowledge, independent of participants' awareness of the words.
13. Hauk O, Davis MH, Kherif F, Pulvermuller F. Imagery or meaning? Evidence for a semantic origin of category-specific brain activity in metabolic imaging. Eur J Neurosci 2008; 27:1856-1866.
14. Mitchell TM, Shinkareva SV, Carlson A, et al. Predicting human brain activity associated with the meanings of nouns. Science 2008; 320:1191-1195. A computational study of category-specific brain activation. The model developed by the authors predicts activation patterns observed in an fMR experiment, as well as activations for categories that have not yet been investigated.
15. Sartori G, Lombardi L. Semantic relevance and semantic disorders. J Cogn Neurosci 2004; 16:439-452.
16. Randall B, Moss HE, Rodd JM, et al. Distinctiveness and correlation in conceptual structure: behavioral and computational studies. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 2004; 30:393-406.
17. Grossman M, Troiani V, Koenig P, et al. How necessary are the stripes of a tiger? Diagnostic and characteristic features in an fMRI study of word meaning. Neuropsychologia 2007; 45:1055-1064.
18. Pexman PM, Hargreaves IS, Edwards JD, et al. The neural consequences of semantic richness: when more comes to mind, less activation is observed. Psychol Sci 2007; 18:401-406.
19. Pexman PM, Hargreaves IS, Edwards JD, et al. Neural correlates of concreteness in semantic categorization. J Cogn Neurosci 2007; 19:1407-1419.
20. Goldberg RF, Perfetti CA, Fiez JA, Schneider W. Selective retrieval of abstract semantic knowledge in left prefrontal cortex. J Neurosci 2007; 27:3790-3798.
21. Zahn R, Moll J, Krueger F, et al. Social concepts are represented in the superior anterior temporal cortex. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2007; 104:6430-6435. A study about an important class of abstract concepts, which appear to involve areas related to social cognition.
22. Bedny M, McGill M, Thompson-Schill SL. Semantic Adaptation and Competition during Word Comprehension. Cereb Cortex 2008 [Epub ahead of print]. A clever experimental attempt to separate processing and representation correlates of word meaning on the basis of modulation of the BOLD response.
23. Kuperberg GR, Lakshmanan BM, Grave DN, West WC. Task and semantic relationship influence both the polarity and localization of hemodynamic modulation during lexico-semantic processing. Hum Brain Mapp 2008; 29:544-561. In line with the previous paper, an examination of task and semantic relationship effects on the BOLD response.
24. Prince SE, Tsukiura T, Cabeza R. Distinguishing the neural correlates of episodic memory encoding and semantic memory retrieval. Psychol Sci 2007; 18:144-151.
25. Ryan L, Cox C, Hayes SM, Nadel L. Hippocampal activation during episodic and semantic memory retrieval: comparing category production and category cued recall. Neuropsychologia 2008; 46:2109-2121.
26. Burianova H, Grady CL. Common and unique neural activations in autobiographical, episodic, and semantic retrieval. J Cogn Neurosci 2007; 19:1520-1534.
27. •], a dense criticism of the embodied cognition approach, plus alternative theoretical proposals.