Dear Users

Today (4-5 pm in YNiC) there will be a project proposal presentation by Carin Whitney. The title of the project is "Investigating semantic cognition with MEG, fMRI and TMS". Please see below for the talk abstract.

Everyone is welcome to attend and refreshments will be provided after the talk.

Best wishes Rebecca

Abstract:

Beth Jefferies, Carin Whitney, Piers Cornelissen and Andy Ellis

This project investigates how semantic cognition – referring to our ability to understand the meaning of words, pictures, faces, sounds, and smells – is represented in the brain. We will focus on semantic control, which is one of two principal components of semantic cognition and relates to executive mechanisms that enable us to retrieve and select conceptual knowledge according to the current task or context.

Research has been plentiful in describing the spatial extent of the brain regions that underpin semantic control, and has identified a distributed fronto-temporo-parietal network. However, it remains largely unknown how this system is organised (i.e., what the specific functions of each component are) and how well they interact. In the proposed project, we will apply a novel approach to investigate these questions by combining MEG with TMS and fMRI. In particular, we will use MEG to track neural activity, allowing us to generate predictions about likely patterns of communication within the semantic control network and its relation to other components of semantic cognition (i.e., brain areas that encode conceptual knowledge). Follow-up TMS will then be used to impair brain functioning at specific time points to prove causality. Equivalent fMRI data – taken from the same participants and tasks – will guide coil positioning for TMS and act as a spatial localiser for MEG. The project hence aims to establish a neural model of semantic cognition that is based on convergent evidence across different methods, generating potentially strong conclusions about how meaning retrieval is achieved.