Main content

Home

Menu

Loading wiki pages...

View
Wiki Version:
Abstract: What enables our mental activities for thinking verbally or humming in our mind? We hypothesized that the interaction between motor and sensory systems induces speech and melodic mental representations, and this motor-to-sensory transformation forms the neural basis that enables our verbal thinking and covert singing. Analogous with the neural entrainment to auditory stimuli, participants imagined singing lyrics of well-known songs rhythmically while their neural electromagnetic signals were recorded using magnetoencephalography (MEG). We found that when participants imagined singing the same song in similar durations across trials, the delta frequency band (1-3 Hz, similar to the rhythm of the songs) showed more consistent phase coherence across trials. This neural phase tracking of imagined singing was observed in a frontal-parietal-temporal network – the proposed motor-to-sensory transformation pathway, including the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), insula, premotor, intra-parietal sulcus (IPS), the temporal-parietal junction (TPJ), primary auditory cortex (HG), and superior temporal gyrus and sulcus (STG & STS). These results suggest that neural responses can entrain the rhythm of mental activity. Moreover, the theta band (4-8 Hz) phase coherence was localized in the auditory cortices. The mu (9-12 Hz) and beta (17-20 Hz) bands were observed in the right-lateralized sensorimotor systems that were consistent with the singing context. The gamma band was broadly manifested in the observed network. The coherent activation in the motor-to-sensory transformation network as well as the frequency-specific activation in the motor, somatosensory, and auditory cortices mediate the internal construction of perceptual representations and form the foundation of neural computations for mental operations.
OSF does not support the use of Internet Explorer. For optimal performance, please switch to another browser.
Accept
This website relies on cookies to help provide a better user experience. By clicking Accept or continuing to use the site, you agree. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and information on cookie use.
Accept
×

Start managing your projects on the OSF today.

Free and easy to use, the Open Science Framework supports the entire research lifecycle: planning, execution, reporting, archiving, and discovery.