Recently Paper accepted in EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
Authors: Candidi, M., Leone-Fernandez, B., Barber, H.A., Carreiras, M., Aglioti, S.M.
Title: Hands on the future: facilitation of cortico-spinal hand-representation when reading the future tense of hand-related action verbs
Abstract
Reading action-related verbs brings about sensorimotor neural activity suggesting that the linguistic representation of actions impinges upon neural structures largely overlapping with those involved in actual action execution. While studies of direct action observation indicate that motor mirroring is inherently anticipatory, no information is currently available on whether deriving action-related knowledge from language also takes into account the temporal deployment of actions. Using Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), here we sought to determine whether reading action verbs conjugated in the future induce higher cortico-spinal activity with respect to when the same verbs were conjugated in the past tense. We recorded Motor Evoked Potentials (MEPs) from related hand and leg muscles of healthy subjects who were reading silently hand- or leg-related action, sensorial (non-somatic) and abstract verbs conjugated either in future or past tense. Amplitude of MEPs recorder from the hand was higher during reading hand-related action verbs conjugated in the future than in the past. No future-related modulation of leg muscles activity was found during reading leg-related action verbs. In a similar vein, no future-related change of hand or leg msucles reactivity was found for abstract or sensorial verbs. These results indicate that the anticipatory mirroring of hand actions may be triggered by lingustic representations and not only by direct action observation.
Grupo de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Psicolinguistica
Monday, May 17, 2010
Posters and Papers presented
- Leone-Fernandez, B., McLaughlin, J., Carreiras, M., Barber, H.A., Osterhout, L. "Being an experiencer or being an actor? An ERP investigation on the processing of the participial adjectives". CSDL-ESLP Conference. University of California, San Diego, 16-19 (2010).
- Leone-Fernandez, B., Barber, H. A., Candidi, M., Aglioti, M., Carreiras, M. Sepex Granada Conference, 15-18 April, 2010.
- Candidi, M., Leone-Fernandez, B., Barber, H., Carreiras, M., Aglioti, M. Afferrare il futuro con la mano: modulazioni dell’eccitabilità cortico-spinale legate ad aspetti temporali di verbi di movimento corporeo. AIP, Chieti, (Italy), 24-26 September 2009.
- Leone-Fernandez, B., Molinaro, N., Barber, H., Carreiras, M. An ERP study on number interference during agreement processing. Simposio di Psicolinguistica, Santiago de Compostela (Spain), 23 – 25 April, 2009.
- Molinaro, N., Barber, H., Leone-Fernandez, B., & Carreiras, M. (2009). An ERP study on number interference during agreement processing. '22nd Annual CUNY Sentence Processing Conference'. Davis (CA, USA), March 26-28, 2009.
- Leone-Fernandez, B., Molinaro, N., Carreiras, M., Barber, H. Correlati ERP dell’elaborazione di caratteristiche transitorie e permanenti di oggetti ed eventi. Padova (Italy), 18 – 20 September, 2008.
- Leone-Fernandez, B., Molinaro, N., Carreiras, M., Barber, H. ¿Están los objetos y son los eventos? : Potenciales Relacionados con Eventos asociados al procesamiento de los verbos “ser” y “estar”. SEPEX, San Sebastian-Donostia (Spain) 3 – 5 April 2008
Awards
I was selected for Award as a young scientist by the Spanish Society of Experimental Psychology, 2009.
This award is given to me for the research: "Hands on the future: facilitation of cortico-spinal hand representation when reading the future tense of hand-related action verbs".
The award has been presented in the SEPEX Conference 2010, Grananda (Spain).
This award is given to me for the research: "Hands on the future: facilitation of cortico-spinal hand representation when reading the future tense of hand-related action verbs".
The award has been presented in the SEPEX Conference 2010, Grananda (Spain).
Visiting research scientist
1) Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, supervisor Manuel Carreiras, San Sebastian-Donostia (Spain) from September to December 2010
2) Psychology Department, University of Washington (UW), supervisor Lee Osterhout, Seattle (USA) from September to December 2009
3) Psychology Department, University College of London (UCL), supervisor Vincent Walsh, London, (UK) from March to April 2009
4) Psychology Department, University of La Sapienza, supervisor Salvatore, M. Aglioti, Rome (IT), from October to December 2008
5) Neuropsychology and Rehabilitation Department, S. Lucia , Rome (IT) a year 2004
6) Neuropsychology section of Government Run company, Terni, (IT) a year 2003
2) Psychology Department, University of Washington (UW), supervisor Lee Osterhout, Seattle (USA) from September to December 2009
3) Psychology Department, University College of London (UCL), supervisor Vincent Walsh, London, (UK) from March to April 2009
4) Psychology Department, University of La Sapienza, supervisor Salvatore, M. Aglioti, Rome (IT), from October to December 2008
5) Neuropsychology and Rehabilitation Department, S. Lucia , Rome (IT) a year 2004
6) Neuropsychology section of Government Run company, Terni, (IT) a year 2003