Marcela Perrone-Bertolotti

Université Grenoble Alpes · Department of Psychology

Studies showed that motor expertise was found to induce improvement in language processing. Grounded and situated approaches attributed this effect to an underlying automatic simulation of the motor experience elicited by action words, similar to motor imagery (MI), and suggest shared representations of action conceptualization. Interestingly, rece...

Planning is defined as the ability to develop a sequenced plan of behavioral steps to achieve a goal and is part of a set of high-order cognitive functions called executive functions. This function is affected in various daily life situations and in a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders (e.g., depression, anxiety, attention deficit disorder, schi...

BACKGROUND Rasmussen encephalitis is a rare chronic neurological pathology frequently treated with functional hemispherectomy (or hemispherotomy). This surgical procedure frees patients of their severe epilepsy associated with the disease but may induce cognitive disorders and notably language alterations after disconnection of the left hemisphere....

Language processing is a highly integrative function, intertwining linguistic operations (processing the language code intentionally used for communication) and extra-linguistic processes (e.g., attention monitoring, predictive inference, long-term memory). This synergetic cognitive architecture requires a distributed and specialized neural substra...

Background The exact architecture of the human auditory cortex remains a subject of debate, with discrepancies between functional and microstructural studies. In a hierarchical framework for sensory perception, simple sound perception is expected to take place in the primary auditory cortex, while the processing of complex, or more integrated perce...

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of Motor Imagery (MI) training on language comprehension. In line with literature suggesting an intimate relationship between the language and the motor system, we proposed that a MI-training could improve language comprehension by facilitating lexico-semantic access. In two experiments, partic...

Language processing is a highly integrative function, intertwining linguistic operations (processing the language code intentionally used for communication) and extra-linguistic processes (e.g., attention monitoring, predictive inference, long-term memory). This synergetic cognitive architecture requires a distributed and specialized neural substra...

There is no consensus regarding clear-cut brain functional dissociations of semantic and syntactic information processing networks. Recent studies proposed a functional dissociation at the spectral level in which semantic and syntactic processes were associated with neural network activity at different frequency intervals. This study aimed at inves...

This study explores whether the speech motor system is involved in verbal rumination, a particular kind of inner speech. The motor simulation hypothesis considers inner speech as an action, accompanied by simulated speech percepts, that would as such involve the speech motor system. If so, we could expect verbal rumination to be disrupted by concur...

Purpose: Canonical sentence structures are the most frequently used in a given language. Less frequent or non-canonical sentences tend to be more challenging to process and to induce a higher cognitive load. To deal with this complexity several authors suggest that not only linguistic but also non-linguistic (domain-general) mechanisms are involved...

Lexical ambiguity is ubiquitous in oral language and sometimes induces comprehension difficulties. Moreover, in ecological situations language is rarely processed without any surrounding noise and one of the more frequent situations of language comprehension is speech-in-speech situations. In the present study we evaluated the cognitive process at...

A fundamental question is whether language comprehension involves specific cognitive mechanisms to decode linguistic information, or whether language comprehension occurs through the interaction with other specialized cognitive systems. Accumulated behavioral and neuroimaging evidence suggests that, in several situations, the language system intera...

The article Interactive mapping of language and memory with the GE2REC protocol, written by Sonja Banjac, Elise Roger, Emilie Cousin, Marcela Perrone-Bertolotti, Célise Haldin, Cédric Pichat, Laurent Lamalle, Lorella Minotti, Philippe Kahane, and Monica Baciu was originally published electronically on the publisher's internet portal on August 06, 2...

In the present preregistered study, we evaluated the possibility of a shared cognitive mechanism during verbal and non-verbal tasks and therefore the implication of domain-general cognitive control during language comprehension. We hypothesized that a behavioral cost will be observed during a dual-task including both verbal and non-verbal difficult...

Language is a highly integrative function, mixing intra-linguistic (e.g., knowledge about sounds, grammar, word meaning) and extra-linguistic (e.g., attention monitoring, predictive inferences, long-term memory) processes. This interactive cognitive architecture requires a distributed and specialized neural substrate. Brain subsystems – featured to...

We present a computerize battery constructed to evaluate behavioral performances for language, declarative memory, executive functions and social cognition abilities. This battery was created to evaluate cognitive outcomes in adults who underwent hemispherotomy as a clinical treatment of Rasmussen Encephalitis (RE) in their childhood and have been...

Previous studies have highlighted the importance of considering cognitive functions from a dynamic and interactive perspective and multiple evidence was brought for a language and memory interaction. In this study performed with healthy participants, we present a new protocol entitled GE2REC that interactively accesses the neural representation of...

In the absence of any neuropsychiatric condition, older adults may show declining performance in several cognitive processes and among them, in retrieving and producing words, reflected in slower responses and even reduced accuracy compared to younger adults. To overcome this difficulty, healthy older adults implement compensatory strategies, which...

Cognitive planning, the ability to develop a sequenced plan to achieve a goal, plays a crucial role in human goal-directed behavior. However, the specific role of frontal structures in planning is unclear. We used a novel and ecological task, that allowed us to separate the planning period from the execution period. The spatio-temporal dynamics of...

Previous research showed that mental rumination, considered as a form of repetitive and negative inner speech, is associated with increased facial muscular activity. However, the relation between these muscular activations and the underlying mental processes is still unclear. In this study, we tried to separate the facial electromyographic correlat...

In the present preregistered study, we evaluated the impact of linguistic ambiguity processing on non-verbal inhibitory processing in a dual-task paradigm. We assessed whether a shared mechanism is involved during verbal and non-verbal conflict resolution. To do so, we constructed a dual-task paradigm including an auditory language comprehension an...

Direct electrical stimulation (DES) at 50 Hz is used as a gold standard to map cognitive functions but little is known about its ability to map large‐scale networks and specific subnetwork. In the present study, we aim to propose a new methodological approach to evaluate the specific hypothesis suggesting that language errors/dysfunction induced by...

Both syntax and Executive Functions (EF) are involved in Theory‐of‐Mind (ToM) but their contributory roles have mainly been studied separately. Moreover, researchers have mostly administered False Belief (FB) tasks while they may not be representative of all ToM abilities. Studies of adults give valuable information regarding whether syntax and EF...

Although having a long history of scrutiny in experimental psychology, it is still controversial whether wilful inner speech (covert speech) production is accompanied by specific activity in speech muscles. We present the results of a preregistered experiment looking at the electromyographic correlates of both overt speech and inner speech producti...

Human brain has developed mechanisms to efficiently decode sensory information according to perceptual categories of high prevalence in the environment, such as faces, symbols, objects. Neural activity produced within localized brain networks has been associated with the process that integrates both sensory bottom-up and cognitive top-down informat...

OBJECTIVE The authors assessed the clinical relevance of preoperative task-induced high-frequency activity (HFA) for language mapping in patients with refractory epilepsy during stereoelectroencephalography recording. Although HFA evaluation was described as a putative biomarker of cognition, its clinical relevance for mapping language networks was...

Previous research showed that mental rumination, considered as a form of repetitive and negative inner speech, is associated with increased facial muscular activity. However, the relation between these muscular activations and the underlying mental processes is still unclear. In this study, we tried to disentangle the facial electromyographic corre...

Adaptive behavior requires the comparison of outcome predictions with actual outcomes (e.g., performance feedback). This process of performance monitoring is computed by a distributed brain network comprising the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the anterior insular cortex (AIC). Despite being consistently co-activated during different tasks, th...

The decision to process an incoming stimulus attentively - and to trigger a follow-up cascade of high-level processes - is strategic for the human brain as it becomes transiently unavailable to subsequent stimulus processing. In this study, we set to identify brain networks that carry out such evaluations. We therefore assessed the time-course of n...

Previous studies have highlighted the importance of considering cognitive functions in a dynamic and interactive perspective and multiple evidence was brought for a language and memory interaction. In this study performed in healthy participants, we developed a new protocol entitled GE2REC that interactively accesses the neural representation of th...

Although having a long history of scrutiny in experimental psychology, it is still controversial whether inner speech (covert speech) production is accompanied by specific activity in speech muscles. We address this question by briefly reviewing previous findings related to inner speech and to the broader phenomenon of motor imagery. We then presen...

Inner speech has been shown to vary in form along several dimensions. Along condensation, condensed inner speech forms have been described, that are supposed to be deprived of acoustic, phonological and even syntactic qualities. Expanded forms, on the other extreme, display articulatory and auditory properties. Along dialogality, inner speech can b...

This article provides an exhaustive description of a new short computerized test to assess on a second-to-second basis the ability of individuals to « stay on task », that is, to apply selectively and repeatedly task-relevant cognitive processes. The task (Bron/Lyon Attention Stability Test, or BLAST) lasts around 1 min, and measures repeatedly the...

In patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), the benefit of temporal surgery must be carefully evaluated taking into consideration the risk of inducing the impairments since surgery can lead to postoperative memory and language deficits. Considering that mesial temporal regions are implied in both of these processes, it should be essential to eva...

Background: Pure attentional deficits are still underdiagnosed in children with epilepsy. While attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is historically the most studied cause of attentional disorders, an important num- ber of children with epilepsy and attentional complaints do not fully meet the DSM-V (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of...

Neural correlates of cognitive planning are not understood well at present. Behavioral paradigms targeting this function are a current challenge in cognitive neuroscience. We recorded EEG activity while subjects were performing a novel behavioral paradigm that evaluates cognitive planning function. Participants showed longer reaction times and decr...

This article provides an exhaustive description of a new short computerized test to assess on a second-to-second basis the ability of individuals to stay on task, that is, to apply selectively and repeatedly task-relevant cognitive processes. The task (Bron/Lyon Attention Stability Test, or BLAST) lasts around one minute, and measures repeatedly th...

Human brain has developed mechanisms to efficiently decode sensory information according to perceptual categories of high prevalence in the environment, such as faces, symbols, objects. Neural activity produced within localized brain networks has been associated with the process that integrates both sensory bottom-up and cognitive top-down informat...

In childhood epileptic disorders, the majority of tests measuring sustained attention are performed beyond seizure occurrence and electroencephalographic recordings. Here we present a novel sustained attention test, easy to handle in the clinical setting, which permits to assess the stability of attention and its physiological fluctuations and thus...

The nature of inner language has long been under the scrutiny of humanities, through the practice of introspection. The use of experimental methods in cognitive neurosciences provides complementary insights. This chapter focuses on wilful expanded inner language, bearing in mind that other forms coexist. It first considers the abstract vs. concrete...

This study explores whether the speech motor system is involved in verbal rumination. The simulation hypothesis postulates that inner speech is a simulation of overt speech, and would as such involve the motor system. If so, we could expect verbal rumination --as a particular kind of inner speech-- to be disrupted by concurrent involvement of the s...

Introduction. Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) accounts for 70-80% of epilepsy in adults (1). The dysfunction (epileptic zone, EZ) is located in the temporal lobe and induces language and memory reorganization of cerebral networks and various degrees of cognitive efficiency. TLE patients should be explored according to a multimodal integrative perspect...

Increasing attention is being paid to the assessment of white matter properties and its structural connectivity, both in healthy subjects and patients with cerebral lesions. Within this framework, new neurocognitive models based on hodological properties have been developed under a connectomic perspective in order to explain substrates and cognitiv...

Introduction. Drug-resistant temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is a severe neurological condition that causes brain injury due to the recurrence of epileptic seizures, with mostly language (L) and memory (M) impairments. Our research aims to: (i) specify the properties of functional modifications on a language and memory network (LMN), according to the...

The goal of the current study was to statistically evaluate the reliable scalability of a set of tasks designed to assess Theory of Mind (ToM) without language as a confounding variable. This tool might be useful to study ToM in populations where language is impaired or to study links between language and ToM. Low verbal versions of the ToM tasks p...

Rumination is predominantly experienced in the form of repetitive verbal thoughts. Verbal rumination is a particular case of inner speech. According to the Motor Simulation view, inner speech is a kind of motor action, recruiting the speech motor system. In this framework, we predicted an increase in speech muscle activity during rumination as comp...

Our goal was to apply a statistical approach to allow the identification of atypical language patterns and to differentiate patients with epilepsy from healthy subjects, based on their cerebral activity, as assessed by functional MRI (fMRI). Patients with focal epilepsy show reorganization or plasticity of brain networks involved in cognitive funct...

This present study investigated the link between speech-in-speech perception capacities and four executive function components: response suppression, inhibitory control, switching and working memory. We constructed a cross-modal semantic priming paradigm using a written target word and a spoken prime word, implemented in one of two concurrent audit...

Dataset. Data used for the analyses presented in this paper. (XLSX)

Ripples are high-frequency bouts of coordinated hippocampal activity believed to be crucial for information transfer and memory formation. We used intracortical macroelectrodes to record neural activity in the human hippocampus of awake subjects undergoing surgical treatment for refractory epilepsy and distinguished two populations of ripple episod...

It has been suggested that dorsal and ventral pathways support distinct aspects of language processing. Yet, the full extent of their involvement and their inter-regional connectivity in visual word recognition is still unknown. Studies suggest that they might reflect the dual-route model of reading, with the dorsal pathway more involved in grapho-p...

The role of syntax in belief attribution is not completely understood in healthy adults and understudied in adults with autism spectrum disorder. Embedded syntax could be useful either for the development of Theory of Mind (ToM) (Emergence account) or more generally over the lifespan (Reasoning account). Two hypotheses have been explored, one sugge...

Rumination is predominantly experienced in the form of repetitive verbal thoughts. Verbal rumination is a particular case of inner speech. According to the Motor Simulation view, inner speech is a kind of motor action, recruiting the speech motor system. In this framework, we predicted an increase in speech muscle activity during rumination as comp...

Dans ce chapitre nous allons aborder le phénomène de latéralisation fonctionnelle pour le langage, appelé également spécialisation hémisphérique, prédominance hémisphérique ou encore organisation inter-hémisphérique. Nous allons dans un premier temps voir comment ce phénomène a été mis en évidence par les études lésionnelles issues de l’aphasiologi...

Les modèles anatomo-fonctionnels du traitement du langage ont évolué d'une approche localisationniste vers une approche distribuée, dynamique et hodotopique. Dans ce contexte, plusieurs concepts classiques sont remis en question, et de nouvelles notions théoriques émergent. A titre d'exemple : a) le traitement dichotomique langagier au niveau hémis...

Background We aim to develop an evaluative conditioning procedure which bolster associative learning since implicit attitude are highly predictive of alcohol consumption. According to dual process theories of attitude learning, non-consciousness is one of the main component of implicit learning. To date, the most promising mechanism to explain asso...

Introduction. Our daily experience is often punctuated by a little voice in our head, the inner speech, which plays a central role in human consciousness as an interplay between language and thinking (Morin, 2005). Our first question concerns the sensorimotor nature of inner speech and its relation with overt speech. The second question deals with...

L’evaluation du deficit cognitif secondaire a la resection de la zone epileptogene est un enjeu crucial, actuellement etudie plus precisement au CHU de Grenoble chez les patients epileptiques pharmacoresistants explores en SEEG. Pour ce faire, les patients sont soumis, lors de la SEEG, a des tâches cognitives, au cours desquelles le signal EEG est...

Auteur correspondant. Service d’épilepsie, sommeil et explorations fonctionnelles neurologiques, groupement hospitalier Est - Hôpital Femme Mère-Enfant, 59, boulevard Pinel, 69677 Bron Cedex, France.