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Introduction
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April 2013 - present
April 2013 - present
July 2010 - March 2013
Publications
Publications (239)
The left temporo-parietal cortex (TPC) is critical for phonological decoding during reading and appears hypoactive in dyslexia. Therefore, a promising approach to alleviate phonological deficits in dyslexia is to modulate left TPC functioning. However, it is unclear how neurostimulation alters activity and network interactions in dyslexia. To addre...
Recent neurobiological models on language suggest that auditory sentence comprehension is supported by a coordinated temporal interplay within a left-dominant brain network, including the posterior inferior frontal gyrus (pIFG), posterior superior temporal gyrus and sulcus (pSTG/STS), and angular gyrus (AG). Here, we probed the timing and causal re...
Dyslexia, a frequent learning disorder, is characterized by severe impairments in reading and writing and hypoactivation in reading regions in the left hemisphere. Despite decades of research, it remains unclear to date if observed behavioural deficits are caused by aberrant network interactions during reading and whether differences in functional...
Objectives: Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has been widely used to modulate brain activity in healthy and diseased brains, but the underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. Previous research leveraged biophysical modeling of the induced electric field (E-field) to map causal structure-function relationships in the primary motor corte...
Language is a key human faculty for communication and interaction that provides invaluable insight into the human mind. Previous work has dissected different linguistic operations, but the large-scale brain networks involved in language processing are still not fully uncovered. Particularly, little is known about the subdomain-specific engagement o...
The left temporo-parietal cortex (TPC) is crucial for phonological decoding, i.e., for learning and retaining sound-letter mappings, and appears hypoactive in dyslexia. Here, we tested the causal contribution of this area for reading in typical readers with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and explored the reading network's response with fMR...
Background
The continuous decline of executive abilities with age is mirrored by increased neural activity of domain-general networks during task processing. So far, it remains unclear how much domain-general networks contribute to domain-specific processes such as language when cognitive demands increase. The current neuroimaging study explored th...
The neuroanatomical correlates of basic semantic composition have been investigated in previous neuroimaging and lesion studies, but research on the electrophysiology of the involved processes is scarce. A large literature on sentence-level event-related potentials (ERPs) during semantic processing has identified at least two relevant components –...
Stroke is the leading cause of long-term disability worldwide. Incurred brain damage disrupts cognition, often with persisting deficits in language and executive capacities. Despite their clinical relevance, the commonalities, and differences of language versus executive control impairments remain under-specified. We tailored a Bayesian hierarchica...
Non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) methods, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), are invaluable tools to modulate cortical activity and behavior, but high within- and between-subject variability limit their efficacy and reliability. Here, we explore the potential of electrical field (e-field) based NIBS dosing to reduce its variabili...
In this editorial we introduce a new non-profit open access journal, Imaging Neuroscience. In April 2023, editors of the journals NeuroImage and NeuroImage:Reports resigned, and a month later launched Imaging Neuroscience. NeuroImage had long been the leading journal in the field of neuroimaging. While the move to fully open access in 2020 represen...
Stopping an already initiated action is crucial for human everyday behavior and empirical evidence points toward the prefrontal cortex playing a key role in response inhibition. Two regions that have been consistently implicated in response inhibition are the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and the more superior region of the dorsolateral prefro...
This study explores differences in spatiotemporal cortical dynamics between five people with chronic post-stroke aphasia and five healthy subjects. Electroencephalography was recorded during picture naming in both groups.
Frequency-specific Global Field Power (GFP) results showed that the delta band has higher power to discriminate between healthy...
Objective
The goal of awake craniotomy in glioma patients is sparing of cognitive function. Previous investigations suggest that patients in the postoperative state may reach their preoperative level regarding domain-based criteria. Data on significant postoperative improvement beyond the preoperative level is sparse. This article examines the pros...
A commentary on Calzavarini
(2023), Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, DOI: 10.1080/23273798.2023.2209928
Efficient language production requires rapid interactions between different brain areas. These interactions can be severely affected by brain lesions. However, the neurophysiological correlates of the spatiotemporal dynamics during language production are not well understood. The current pilot study explores differences in spatiotemporal cortical d...
Conceptual knowledge is central to human cognition. Neuroimaging studies suggest that conceptual processing involves modality-specific and multimodal brain regions in a task-dependent fashion. However, it remains unclear (1) whether conceptual representations within these regions are also modulated by the task, (2) whether conceptual representation...
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) can actively modulate neuronal processing via the induction of electro-magnetic fields (e-fields), which allows causal inferences about brain functioning in health and disease. Traditionally, the motor threshold (MT) has been used as a whole-brain proxy to standardize the stimulation intensity across subjects...
Non-invasive brain stimulation techniques are popular tools to investigate brain function in health and disease. Although transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is widely used in cognitive neuroscience research to probe causal structure-function relationships, studies often yield inconclusive results. To improve the effectiveness of TMS studies, w...
Ischemic cerebrovascular events often lead to aphasia. Previous work provided hints that such strokes may affect women and men in distinct ways. Women tend to suffer strokes with more disabling language impairment, even if the lesion size is comparable to men. In 1401 patients, we isolate data-led representations of anatomical lesion patterns and h...
Stopping an already initiated action is crucial for human everyday behavior and empirical evidence points toward the prefrontal cortex playing a key role in response inhibition. Two regions that have been consistently implicated in response inhibition are the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and the more superior region of the dorsolateral prefro...
Understanding the relationships between brain structure and language behavior in primary progressive aphasia provides crucial information about these diseases’ pathomechanisms. However, previous investigations have been limited from providing a statistically reliable view of broad language abilities by sample size, variant focus, and task focus. In...
In this manuscript we investigate the effect of cross-modal stop-signals in a response inhibition task. Report on three studies, from which we can draw two main conclusions. First, a mismatch between stop- and go-signal modality can increase reactive stopping performance, and tactile stop-signals are processed more effectively compared to visual st...
Language is organized in large-scale networks in the human brain that show a strong potential for flexible interactions and adaptation. Neuroplasticity is the central mechanism that allows such dynamic modulation to changing conditions across the life span and is particularly important for network reorganization after brain lesions. Most studies on...
Objectives
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has been widely used to modulate brain activity in healthy and diseased brains, but the underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. Previous research leveraged biophysical modeling of the induced electric field (E-field) to map causal structure-function relationships in the primary motor cortex...
Conceptual knowledge plays a pivotal role in human cognition. Grounded cognition theories propose that concepts consist of perceptual-motor features represented in modality-specific perceptual-motor cortices. However, it is unclear whether conceptual processing consistently engages modality-specific areas. Here, we performed an activation likelihoo...
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a non-invasive technique to modulate brain activity. Previously, we leveraged biophysical modeling of the induced electric field (E-field) to map causal structure-function relationships in the primary motor cortex. Here, we transfer this localization approach to attention network, which helps to understand...
We describe a routine to precisely localize cortical muscle representations within the primary motor cortex with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) based on the functional relation between induced electric fields at the cortical level and peripheral muscle activation (motor evoked potentials; MEPs). Besides providing insights into structure-fu...
The inferior parietal lobe (IPL) is an important hub of neural network function across multiple cognitive states, contributing to “task-negative” networks (default mode network; DMN) and “task-active” networks. To investigate flexible network behavior in cognition, we combined spaced double continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS) with functional...
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a non-invasive brain stimulation tool for modulating and mapping cortical function. TMS-based functional mapping methods typically exploit causal relationships between brain structure and function. In earlier work, we demonstrated that cortical sites of the motor area can be precisely localized by relating...
Supplementary Material to Kuhnke et al. (2023) "Meta-analytic evidence for a novel hierarchical model of conceptual processing" Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
Conceptual knowledge is central to human cognition. Previous neuroimaging studies suggest that conceptual processing relies on the joint contribution of modality-specific perceptual-motor and multimodal brain regions. In particular, multimodal inferior parietal cortex (IPL) coupled with somatomotor cortex during action knowledge retrieval and with...
Here, we provide an example dataset for our *Precise motor mapping with transcranial magnetic stimulation* protocol. All scripts, installation instructions, etc. to conduct the mapping are made accessible in a code repository.
We describe a routine to precisely localize cortical muscle representations within the primary motor cortex with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) based on the functional relation between induced electric fields at the cortical level and peripheral muscle activation (motor-evoked potentials; MEPs). Besides providing insights into structure–fu...
Background
The causal relationships between neural substrates and human language have been investigated by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). However, the robustness of TMS neuromodulatory effects is still largely unspecified. This study aims to systematically examine the efficacy of TMS on healthy participants’ language performance.
Methods...
Supplementary Material to Kuhnke et al. (2022) "Meta-analytic evidence for a novel hierarchical model of conceptual processing" https://www.researchgate.net/publication/365162594_Meta-analytic_evidence_for_a_novel_hierarchical_model_of_conceptual_processing
Conceptual knowledge plays a pivotal role in human cognition. Grounded cognition theories propose that concepts consist of perceptual-motor features represented in modality-specific perceptual-motor cortices. However, it is unclear whether conceptual processing consistently engages modality-specific areas. Here, we performed an activation likelihoo...
Categorical predictions have been proposed as the key mechanism supporting the fast pace of syntactic composition in language. Accordingly, grammar-based expectations are formed-e.g., the determiner "a" triggers the prediction for a noun-and facilitate the analysis of incoming syntactic information, which is then checked against a single or few oth...
Background
The continuous decline of executive abilities with age is mirrored by increased neural activity of domain-general networks during task processing. So far, it remains unclear how much domain-general networks contribute to domain-specific processes such as language when cognitive demands increase. The current neuroimaging study explored th...
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...
Cognitive aging is associated with widespread neural reorganization processes in the human brain. However, the behavioral impact of such reorganization is not well understood. The current neuroimaging study investigated age differences in the functional network architecture during semantic word retrieval in young and older adults. Combining task-ba...
The neuromodulatory effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) on language competence in healthy participants was meta-analyzed by a random-effect model.
TMS showed a significant overall effect, thus demonstrating its efficacy on healthy participants’ language competence.
TMS neuromodulatory effects were moderated by tasks, brain regions, s...
Noninvasive brain stimulation (NIBS) techniques are widely used tools for the study and rehabilitation of cognitive functions. Different NIBS approaches aim to enhance or impair different cognitive processes. The methodological focus for achieving this has been on stimulation protocols that are considered either inhibitory or facilitatory. However,...
An intrinsic characteristic of the motor system is the preference of one side of the body. Lateralization is found in motor behavior and in the structural and functional correlates of cortical motor networks. While genetic factors have been elucidated as mechanisms leading to such asymmetries, findings in motor learning and experience from clinical...
Objective
Alpha oscillations are linked to inhibitory capabilities in higher cognitive processing. Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) at 10 Hz can enhance alpha oscillations and modulate behaviour. One possibility to increase the efficacy of tACS may be stimulating at the individual alpha frequency (IAF). The present work addresses...
Accumulating evidence indicates two cortical regions, the left ventral premotor cortex (PMv) and left intraparietal sulcus (IPS), are involved in spoken verb production. Some evidence also indicates these regions may be differentially engaged by transitive (i.e., object-oriented) versus intransitive actions. We explored the role of these regions du...
Speech comprehension is often challenged by increased background noise, but can be facilitated via the semantic context of a sentence. This predictability gain relies on an interplay of language-specific semantic and domain-general brain regions. However, age-related differences in the interactions within and between semantic and domain-general net...
Semantic memory is a fundamental human ability which is central to communication. Although it is usually well preserved in healthy aging, memory problems in verbal communication due to slowed access and retrieval processes are a common complaint with increasing age. So far, the neural bases of this paradox remain poorly understood. The current neur...
Semantic knowledge is central to human cognition. The angular gyrus (AG) is widely considered a key brain region for semantic cognition. However, the role of the AG in semantic processing is controversial. Key controversies concern response polarity (activation vs. deactivation) and its relation to task difficulty, lateralization (left vs. right AG...
The reading network in the human brain comprises several regions, including the left inferior frontal cortex (IFC), ventral occipito-temporal cortex (vOTC) and dorsal temporo-parietal cortex (TPC). The left TPC is crucial for phonological decoding, i.e., for learning and retaining sound-letter mappings. Here, we tested the causal contribution of th...
Human cognition is organized in distributed networks in the brain. Although distinct specialized networks have been identified for different cognitive functions, previous work also emphasizes the overlap of key cognitive domains in higher level association areas. The majority of previous studies focused on network overlap and dissociation during re...
Low-intensity transcranial electrical stimulation (tES), including alternating or direct current stimulation, applies weak electrical stimulation to modulate the activity of brain circuits. Integration of tES with concurrent functional MRI (fMRI) allows for the mapping of neural activity during neuromodulation, supporting causal studies of both bra...
Language is a cognitive function that is asymmetrically distributed across both hemispheres, with left dominance for most linguistic operations. One key question of interest in cognitive neuroscience studies is related to the contribution of both hemispheres in bilingualism. Previous work shows a difference of both hemispheres for auditory processi...
The cerebellum and its interaction with cortical areas play a key role in our ability to flexibly adapt a motor program in response to sensory input. Current knowledge about specific neural mechanisms underlying the process of visuomotor adaptation is however lacking. Using a novel placement of EEG electrodes to record electric activity from the ce...
Diaschisis is a phenomenon observed in stroke that is defined as neuronal dysfunction in regions spared by the infarction but connected to the lesion site.
We combined lesion network mapping and task-based functional MRI in 71 patients with post-stroke aphasia to investigate, whether diaschisis and its resolution contribute to early loss and recove...
Ischemic cerebrovascular events often lead to aphasia. Previous work provided hints that such strokes may affect women and men in distinct ways. Women tend to suffer strokes with more disabling language impairment, even if the lesion size is comparable to men. In 1,401 patients, we isolated data-led representations of anatomical lesion patterns and...
We describe a routine to precisely localize cortical muscle representations within the primary motor cortex with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). This allows for an accurate and experimenter-independent determination of motor thresholds and enables TMS dosing based on individual field thresholds. Motor evoked potentials (MEPs) for different...
We describe a routine to precisely localize cortical muscle representations within the primary motor cortex with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) based on the functional relation between induced electric fields at the cortical level and motor evoked potentials. Besides insights into structure-function relationships, this lays the foundation...
Semantic knowledge is central to human cognition. The angular gyrus (AG) is widely considered a key brain region for semantic cognition. However, the role of the AG in semantic processing is controversial. Key controversies concern response polarity (activation vs. deactivation) and its relation to task difficulty, lateralization (left vs. right AG...
Semantic knowledge is central to human cognition. The angular gyrus (AG) is widely considered a key brain region for semantic cognition. However, the role of the AG in semantic processing is controversial. Key controversies concern response polarity (activation vs. deactivation) and its relation to task difficulty, lateralization (left vs. right AG...
How do predictions in the brain incorporate the temporal unfolding of context in our natural environment? We here provide evidence for a neural coding scheme that sparsely updates contextual representations at the boundary of events. This yields a hierarchical, multilayered organization of predictive language comprehension. Training artificial neur...
