The dorsal premotor cortex orchestrates concurrent speech and fingertapping movements.

Human speech and hand use both involve highly specialized complex movement patterns. Whereas previous studies in detail characterized the cortical motor systems mediating speech and finger movements, the network that provides coordination of concurrent speech and hand movements so far is unknown. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the present study investigated differential cortical networks devoted to speech or fingertapping, and regions mediating integration of these complex movement patterns involving different effectors. The conjunction contrasts revealing regions activated both during sole fingertapping and sole repetitive articulation or reading aloud showed contralateral regions at the border of ventral and dorsal motor cortex. In contrast, the analyses revealing regions showing a higher level of fMRI activation for concurrent movements of both effectors compared with sole hand movements or repetitive articulation or reading aloud showed distinct premotor activations, which were situated dorsal and caudal to the areas activated across speech and fingertapping tasks. These results indicate that the premotor cortex (PMC) subserves coordination of concurrent speech with hand movements. This integrative motor region is not identical with the area that shows overlapping activations for speech and fingertapping. Thus, concurrent performance of these complex movement patterns involving different effectors requires, in addition to somatotopic motor cortex activation, orchestration subserved by a distinct PMC area.

The role of the anterior intraparietal sulcus in crossmodal processing of object features in humans: an rTMS study.

Investigations in macaques and humans have shown that the anterior intraparietal sulcus (IPS) has an important function in the integration of information from tactile and visual object manipulation. The goal of this study was to investigate the special functional role of the anterior IPS in visuo-tactile matching in humans. We used the "virtual-lesion" technique of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to test the functional relevance of anterior IPS for visuo-tactile crossmodal matching. Two crossmodal (visual encoding and tactile recognition and vice versa) and two unimodal delayed matching-to-sample tests with geometrical patterns were performed by 12 healthy subjects. We determined error rates before and after focal low-frequency rTMS applied over the left anterior IPS, right anterior IPS and vertex. During the manipulation of objects with the right hand, rTMS over the left anterior IPS induced a significant deterioration for visual encoding and tactile recognition, but not for tactile encoding and visual recognition. For the visual and tactile unimodal conditions, no significant alterations in task performance were found. rTMS application over right IPS when manipulating objects with the left hand did not affect crossmodal task performance. In conclusion, we have demonstrated an essential functional role of the left anterior IPS for visuo-tactile matching when manipulating objects with the right hand. However, we found no clear evidence for left IPS involvement in tactile encoding and visual recognition. The differential effect of rTMS on tactile and visual encoding and recognition are not consistently explained by previous concepts of visuo-tactile integration.

Excitability of human motor and visual cortex before, during, and after hyperventilation.

In humans, hyperventilation (HV) has various effects on systemic physiology and, in particular, on neuronal excitability and synaptic transmission. However, it is far from clear how the effects of HV are mediated at the cortical level. In this study we investigated the effects of HV-induced hypocapnia on primary motor (M1) and visual cortex (V1) excitability. We used 1) motor threshold (MT) and phosphene threshold (PT) and 2) stimulus-response (S-R) curves (i.e., recruitment curves) as measures of excitability. In the motor cortex, we additionally investigated 3) the intrinsic inhibitory and facilitatory neuronal circuits using a short-interval paired-pulse paradigm. Measurements were performed before, during, and after 10 min of HV (resulting in a minimum end-tidal Pco(2) of 15 Torr). HV significantly increased motor-evoked potential (MEP) amplitudes, particularly at lower transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) intensities. Paired-pulse stimulation indicated that HV decreases intracortical inhibition (ICI) without changing intracortical facilitation. The results suggestthat low Pco(2) levels modulate, in particular, the intrinsic neuronal circuits of ICI, which are largely mediated by neurons containing gamma-aminobutyric acid. Modulation of MT probably resulted from alterations of Na(+) channel conductances. A significant decrease of PT, together with higher intensity of phosphenes at low stimulus intensities, furthermore suggested that HV acts on the excitability of M1 and V1 in a comparable fashion. This finding implies that HV also affects other brain structures besides the corticospinal motor system. The further exploration of these physiological mechanisms may contribute to the understanding of the various HV-related clinical phenomenona.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation and the challenge of coil placement: a comparison of conventional and stereotaxic neuronavigational strategies.

The combination of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) with functional neuroimaging has expanded the potential of TMS for human brain mapping. The precise and reliable positioning of the TMS coil is not a simple task, however. Modern frameless stereotaxic systems allow investigators to base navigation either on the subject's structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), functional MRI data, or the use of functional neuroimaging data from the literature, so-called "probabilistic approach." The latter assumes consistency across individuals in the location of task-related "activations" in standardized stereotaxic space. Conventional nonstereotaxic localization of brain areas is also a common method for defining the coil position. Our aim was to evaluate the accuracy of five different localization strategies in one single study. The left primary motor cortex (left M1-Hand) was used as target region. Three approaches were based on real-time frameless stereotaxy using information based on either anatomical or functional MRI. The remaining two strategies relied either on standard cranial landmarks (i.e., the International 10-20 EEG system) or a standardized function-guided procedure (i.e., the spatial relationship between the left and right M1-Hand). The results were compared to a TMS-based mapping of the primary motor cortex; center of gravity of motor-evoked potentials (MEP-CoG) was calculated for each subject (n = 10). Our findings suggest that highest precision can be achieved with fMRI-guided stimulation, which was accurate within the range of millimeters. Very consistent results were also obtained with the "probabilistic" approach. In view of these findings, we discuss the methods and special characteristics of each localization strategy.

A repetition suppression effect lasting several days within the semantic network.

Performance in a semantic task is speeded up for repeated stimuli compared to novel stimuli. This conceptual priming effect is related to a decrease in functional activation within the left inferior prefrontal cortex for repeated stimulus exposure (repetition suppression). However, in contrast to perceptual priming which is known to be very robust over long periods of time, previous studies on semantic priming focused on short-term effects. The present study combined a behavioral and functional imaging experiment to investigate long-term conceptual repetition priming (retention interval 3 days). We found a highly significant decrease of reaction time for word stimuli which were presented repeatedly after 3 days both compared to initial presentation and to a matched word list. The functional magnetic resonance imaging data showed a repetition suppression within the left inferior (BA45, BA47) and middle (BA9) frontal gyrus for the comparison of known with unknown words. These data demonstrate that even over a period as long as 3 days, a repetition suppression within the left frontal network involved in semantic decision can be found. Thus, priming-related mechanisms in the semantic network may be robust over several days.