ArticleHuman brain mapping2023
Differential contributions of inferior frontal gyrus subregions to sentence processing guided by intonation.
Article in Human brain mapping, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 33 citations in OpenAlex.
- Outcome measures for electric field modeling in tES and TMS: A systematic review and large-scale modeling study.NeuroImage · 2023Pooled it
- High-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) of the left middle temporal gyrus (LMTG) improves mathematical reasoning.Brain topography · 2023Trial
- Does nonsense make sense? A springboard to studying dynamic reconfiguration of large-scale networks during semantic and intonation speech processing.NeuroImage · 2026Article
- Fixel-Based White Matter Correlates of Sentence Comprehension in Post-Stroke Aphasia.Brain sciences · 2025Article
- Causal contributions of left inferior and medial frontal cortex to semantic and executive control.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Neural correlates of auditory comprehension and integration of sanskrit verse: a functional MRI study.Brain structure & function · 2025Article
- Speech prosody enhances the neural processing of syntax.Communications biology · 2024Article
- Processing of auditory novelty in human cortex during a semantic categorization task.Hearing research · 2024Article
- Electric-field-based dosing for TMS.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2024Article
- Continuous Theta-Burst Stimulation on the Left Posterior Inferior Frontal Gyrus Perturbs Complex Syntactic Processing Stability in Mandarin Chinese.Neurobiology of language (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2024Article
- The spatiotemporal dynamics of semantic integration in the human brain.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Revisiting the focality of non-invasive brain stimulation - Implications for studies of human cognition.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2023Review
- Differential contributions of inferior frontal gyrus subregions to sentence processing guided by intonation.Human brain mapping · 2023Article
- Neuromodulatory effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation on language performance in healthy participants: Systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2022Article
- Two Independent Response Mechanisms to Auditory Stimuli Measured with Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy in Sleeping Infants.Trends in hearingArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Auditory sentence comprehension involves processing content (semantics), grammar (syntax), and intonation (prosody). The left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) is involved in sentence comprehension guided by these different cues, with neuroimaging studies preferentially locating syntactic and semantic processing in separate IFG subregions. However, this regional specialisation has not been confirmed with a neurostimulation method. Consequently, the causal role of such a specialisation remains unclear. This study probed the role of the posterior IFG (pIFG) for syntactic processing and the anterior IFG (aIFG) for semantic processing with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in a task that required the interpretation of the sentence's prosodic realisation. Healthy participants performed a sentence completion task with syntactic and semantic decisions, while receiving 10 Hz rTMS over either left aIFG, pIFG, or vertex (control). Initial behavioural analyses showed an inhibitory effect on accuracy without task-specificity. However, electric field simulations revealed differential effects for both subregions. In the aIFG, stronger stimulation led to slower semantic processing, with no effect of pIFG stimulation. In contrast, we found a facilitatory effect on syntactic processing in both aIFG and pIFG, where higher stimulation strength was related to faster responses. Our results provide first evidence for the functional relevance of left aIFG in semantic processing guided by intonation. The stimulation effect on syntactic responses emphasises the importance of the IFG for syntax processing, without supporting the hypothesis of a pIFG-specific involvement. Together, the results support the notion of functionally specialised IFG subregions for diverse but fundamental cues for language processing.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.