Format

Send to

Choose Destination
Behav Neurol. 2006;17(3-4):187-94.

Enhancement of phonological memory following transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).

Author information

1
Department of Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.

Abstract

Phonologically similar items (mell, rell, gell) are more difficult to remember than dissimilar items (shen, floy, stap), likely because of mutual interference of the items in the phonological store. Low-frequency transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), guided by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to disrupt this phonological confusion by stimulation of the left inferior parietal (LIP) lobule. Subjects received TMS or placebo stimulation while remembering sets of phonologically similar or dissimilar pseudo-words. Consistent with behavioral performance of patients with neurological damage, memory for phonologically similar, but not dissimilar, items was enhanced following TMS relative to placebo stimulation. Stimulation of a control region of the brain did not produce any changes in memory performance. These results provide new insights into how the brain processes verbal information by establishing the necessity of the inferior parietal region for optimal phonological storage. A mechanism is proposed for how TMS reduces phonological confusion and leads to facilitation of phonological memory.

PMID:
17148839
PMCID:
PMC5471529
[Indexed for MEDLINE]
Free PMC Article

Supplemental Content

Full text links

Icon for PubMed Central
Loading ...
Support Center