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Inner Speech Brain Mapping. Is It Possible to Map What We Cannot Observe?

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Intraoperative Mapping of Cognitive Networks

Abstract

Inner speech (IS), or the ability to speak silently in our heads, is an important function in our rich mental life that lies at the crossroad of other cognitive domains such as language, thinking, and working memory as well as self-reflective and self-regulatory functions. An outstanding question is how to measure IS, as this phenomenon is not easily observable, and posits an important challenge to research and clinical work especially during awake brain intraoperative monitoring. Here we review theoretical and methodological approaches to IS, highlight its neural underpinnings, and propose several ideas to address the challenge of measuring IS during awake brain surgery.

Converso con el hombre que siempre va conmigo

- quien habla solo espera hablar a Dios un día -;

mi soliloquio es plática con ese buen amigo

que me enseñó el secreto de la filantropía.

[I am in conversation with a friend who is always with me.

- Who talks alone can hope someday to talk with the Divine -

All my soliloquy amounts to talk with this companion

Who shared with me the secret key to loving humankind.]

Antonio Machado, “Retratos”

Voices inside my head

Echoes of things that you said

(The Police, Voices inside my head, from Zenyatta Mondatta 1980)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cognition and Brain Plasticity Unit (CBPU), ICREA and Department of Cognition, Development and Education Psychology and IDIBELL (Campus de Bellvitge), University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Antoni Rodriguez-Fornells

  2. Department of Cognition, Development and Educational Psychology, Barcelona, Spain

    Patricia León-Cabrera

  3. Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospital of Bellvitge, Barcelona, Spain

    Andreu Gabarros

  4. Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour and Donders Centre for Medical Neuroscience, Department of Medical Psychology, Radboud University and Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Joanna Sierpowska

Authors
  1. Antoni Rodriguez-Fornells
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  2. Patricia León-Cabrera
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  3. Andreu Gabarros
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  4. Joanna Sierpowska
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Correspondence to Antoni Rodriguez-Fornells .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurosurgery, Lariboisière Hospital, Paris Brain Institute (ICM) and Paris University, Paris, France

    Emmanuel Mandonnet

  2. Department of Neurosurgery, Gui de Chauliac Hospital, Montpellier & Institute of Functional Genomics, University of Montpellier, INSERM, CNRS, Montpellier, France

    Guillaume Herbet

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Rodriguez-Fornells, A., León-Cabrera, P., Gabarros, A., Sierpowska, J. (2021). Inner Speech Brain Mapping. Is It Possible to Map What We Cannot Observe?. In: Mandonnet, E., Herbet, G. (eds) Intraoperative Mapping of Cognitive Networks. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75071-8_23

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