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Language Tasks and the Network Control Role of the Left Inferior Frontal Gyrus
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Language Tasks and the Network Control Role of the Left Inferior Frontal Gyrus

John D. Medaglia, Denise Y. Harvey, Apoorva S. Kelkar, Jared P. Zimmerman, Joely A. Mass, Danielle S. Bassett and Roy H. Hamilton
eNeuro, v 8(5), pENEURO.0382-20.2021
01 Sep 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0382-20.2021
PMID: 34244340
url
https://doi.org/10.1523/eneuro.0382-20.2021View
Published, Version of Record (VoR)CC BY V4.0,  Open
url
https://doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0382-20.2021View
Published, Version of Record (VoR) Open

Abstract

Life Sciences & Biomedicine Neurosciences Neurosciences & Neurology Science & Technology
Recent work has combined cognitive neuroscience and control theory to make predictions about cognitive control functions. Here, we test a link between whole-brain theories of semantics and the role of the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) in controlled language performance using network control theory (NCT), a branch of systems engineering. Specifically, we examined whether two properties of node controllability, boundary and modal controllability, were linked to semantic selection and retrieval on sentence completion and verb generation tasks. We tested whether the controllability of the left IFG moderated language selection and retrieval costs and the effects of continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS), an inhibitory form of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) on behavior in 41 human subjects (25 active, 16 sham). We predicted that boundary controllability, a measure of the theoretical ability of a node to integrate and segregate brain networks, would be linked to word selection in the contextually-rich sentence completion task. In contrast, we expected that modal controllability, a measure of the theoretical ability of a node to drive the brain into specifically hard-to-reach states, would be linked to retrieval on the low-context verb generation task. Boundary controllability was linked to selection and to the ability of TMS to reduce response latencies on the sentence completion task. In contrast, modal controllability was not linked to performance on the tasks or TMS effects. Overall, our results suggest a link between the network integrating role of the LIFG and selection and the overall semantic demands of sentence completion.

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17 citations in Web of Science
12 citations in Scopus

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Neurosciences
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