Elsevier

Cortex

Volume 79, June 2016, Pages 1-13
Cortex

Research report
The ‘when’ and ‘where’ of semantic coding in the anterior temporal lobe: Temporal representational similarity analysis of electrocorticogram data

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2016.02.015Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Abstract

Electrocorticograms (ECoG) provide a unique opportunity to monitor neural activity directly at the cortical surface. Ten patients with subdural electrodes covering ventral and lateral anterior temporal regions (ATL) performed a picture naming task. Temporal representational similarity analysis (RSA) was used, for the first time, to compare spatio-temporal neural patterns from the ATL surface with pre-defined theoretical models. The results indicate that the neural activity in the ventral subregion of the ATL codes semantic representations from 250 msec after picture onset. The observed activation similarity was not related to the visual similarity of the pictures or the phonological similarity of their names. In keeping with convergent evidence for the importance of the ATL in semantic processing, these results provide the first direct evidence of semantic coding from the surface of the ventral ATL and its time-course.

Keywords

Semantic representation
Anterior temporal lobe
Representational similarity
Multi-voxel pattern analysis

Abbreviations

ECoG
electrocorticogram
RSA
representational similarity analysis
ATL
anterior temporal lobe

Cited by (0)

1

Both first authors made an equal contribution to this work.

2

AI and MALR contributed equally to this work and thus are joint senior authors.