Nouns, verbs learned in different brain areas
February 26th, 2010 - 12:12 pm ICT by IANSLondon, Feb 26 (IANS) Scientists have recently shown that the part of the brain that gets activated when a person learns a new noun is different from the part used when a verb is learned.
Antoni Rodriguez-Fornells, psychologist from the University of Barcelona, along with Anna Mestres-Misse, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, and neurologist Thomas F. Münte from the Otto-von-Guericke University in Germany, have just confirmed neural (nerve cell) differences in the map of the brain when a person learns new nouns and verbs.
The team knew that many patients with brain damage exhibit dissociation in processing these kinds of words, and that children learn nouns before verbs. Adults also perform better and react faster to nouns during cognitive tests.
Based on these ideas, researchers devised an experiment to confirm whether these differences could be seen in the brain, says a Plataforma SINC release.
They set people a test to learn new nouns and verbs, and recorded their neural reactions using functional magnetic resonance imaging. This technique makes it possible to observe how regions of the brain activate while a person is carrying out a specific task.
Participants had to learn 80 new nouns and 80 new verbs. By doing this, the brain imaging showed that new nouns and new verbs activated different parts of the brain.
These findings were published in NeuroImage.
- Autistic brains 'focus more on visual skills' - Apr 05, 2011
- Neuroimaging 'predicts' which dyslexics will learn to read - Dec 21, 2010
- Year-old babies track word patterns to support learning - Dec 11, 2011
- Historical context, not the brain, drives language development: Study - Apr 15, 2011
- Sticking to values activates 'ethics' part of brain - Jan 23, 2012
- Study finds hemodynamic responses for infant's facial expressions - Nov 06, 2010
- Why our brains get tripped up when we're anxious - Sep 14, 2010
- Can't remember faces? Blame your superior reading skills - Nov 13, 2010
- Improving brain plasticity could delay Alzheimer's onset in elderly - Mar 24, 2011
- A broken heart 'hurts' just as much as intense physical pain - Mar 29, 2011
- How coaching with compassion 'lights up' our brain - Nov 18, 2010
- Scientists decode how brain records thought-word connect - Jan 13, 2010
- Brain activity is similar for both habits and goals - Mar 24, 2011
- Cerebellum offers clues to nature of human intelligence - Mar 09, 2011
- Mindfulness meditation makes people act more rationally - Apr 21, 2011
Tags: brain areas, brain damage, brain imaging, brain sciences, cognitive tests, different parts of the brain, functional magnetic resonance, functional magnetic resonance imaging, london feb, magnetic resonance imaging, map of the brain, max planck, max planck institute, nerve cell, nouns and verbs, parts of the brain, regions of the brain, university in germany, university of barcelona, using functional magnetic resonance imaging