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Involvement of Broca’s Area and Its Right Hemispheric Homologue in Acquiring Abstract and Concrete Semantics: Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Study

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Abstract—

The study compared effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of Broca’s area and of its right hemispheric homologue on the acquisition of novel concrete and abstract words. Word/concept acquisition was achieved through reading sets of sentences, which incorporated novel words, gradually revealing their meaning through context. Before the learning session, a 15-min anodal or cathodal stimulation of one of the target areas was applied. A lexical decision task was used to assess the learning outcomes immediately after the learning session and 24 h later. The results showed a larger number of correct responses after right hemispheric tDCS, in comparison with that of Broca’s area in the left hemisphere. These results suggest that the right hemispheric counterpart of Broca’s area is involved in the processing and acquisition of new concrete and abstract semantics. Furthermore, they demonstrate facilitating effects of tDCS on the processes of overnight consolidation of newly formed word memory traces.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors are grateful to Margarita Filippova and Olga Shcherbakova for valuable assistance provided in creating the stimulus set; Ekaterina Perikova, in recruiting participants; and Diana Tsvetova and Anastasia Filatova, in data collecting.

Funding

This study was supported by St. Petersburg State University, project no. 94 615 876.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia

    D. S. Gnedykh, S. N. Kostromina & N. A. Mkrtychyan

  2. Pavlov Institute of Physiology, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia

    E. D. Blagovechtchenski

  3. Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

    Y. Y. Shtyrov

Authors
  1. D. S. Gnedykh
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  2. E. D. Blagovechtchenski
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  4. N. A. Mkrtychyan
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Correspondence to D. S. Gnedykh.

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COMPLIANCE WITH ETHICAL STANDARDS

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the biomedical ethics principles formulated in the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments and approved by the local Bioethics Committee of St. Petersburg State University (St. Petersburg).

Conflict of interest. The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Informed consent. Each study participant provided a signed voluntary written informed consent after explanation of the potential risks and benefits, as well as the nature of the upcoming study, to him.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTION

D.S. Gnedykh—data collection, visualization, writing the text of the article; N.A. Mkrtychyan—data collection, mathematical and statistical data processing; E.D. Blago-vechtchenski—methodology, editing the text of the article; S.N. Kostromina—study design, methodology, editing the text of the article; Y.Y. Shtyrov—study design, methodology, scientific guidance, editing the text of the article.

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Translated by E. Babchenko

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Gnedykh, D.S., Blagovechtchenski, E.D., Kostromina, S.N. et al. Involvement of Broca’s Area and Its Right Hemispheric Homologue in Acquiring Abstract and Concrete Semantics: Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Study. Hum Physiol 49, 274–280 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0362119723700317

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S0362119723700317

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