Mind-Brain Lecture: Gesa Hartwigsen (Leipzig)

“Modulating language networks with transcranial magnetic stimulation: Functional relevance, adaptive plasticity and effective connectivity on the systems level”

Host: Friedemann Pulvermüller Abstract:
Language is an essential mental capability for human communication. I
will introduce different approaches that combine transcranial magnetic
stimulation (TMS) and functional neuroimaging to characterize the
functional relevance of key nodes for different language functions and
elucidate interactions, adaptive plasticity and effective connectivity
in the healthy and lesioned language network. First, I will
demonstrate how TMS during a language task can help to unravel the
contribution of the stimulated area to a specific language function.
In particular, I will address the role of different key regions for
language comprehension on the word and sentence level. The second part
of my talk focuses to the combination of plasticity-inducing TMS
before a task and subsequent functional neuroimaging to elucidate
adaptive plasticity during semantic processing. I will show that a
TMS-induced perturbation might suppress task-related activity not only
in the stimulated area, but can also affect a larger network.
Moreover, TMS can modulate the effective connectivity within a
specific network. Finally, I will present novel TMS-fMRI data on the
investigation of adaptive plasticity in the reorganized language
network in patients with chronic poststroke aphasia. As an outlook, I
will introduce the online combination of TMS and
electroencephalography to modulate event-related potentials during
semantic processing.

Back