tDCS of the primary motor cortex improves the detection of semantic dissonance

Increasing evidences show that the linguistic representation of motor activities induces simulative processes that involve motor neural systems normally engaged in actual execution of movements. However, other researches suggest that the motor cortex is not an integral part of the network for action-word representation but is recruited only to execute tasks that critically require the retrieval of sensorimotor attributes associated with words. In order to enlighten this controversial literature, three groups of healthy participants were submitted to transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) (cathodal, anodal and sham stimulations) of the left primary motor cortex during the execution of a picture recognition task. Results show that cathodal stimulation improves the participants’ ability to detect either mismatching motor vs. no motor sentence-drawing associations, while no significant difference has not been reported for compatible associations. The current result is in line with the suggestion that motor regions play a critical role in detecting dissonant outcomes.

► Several researches have shown relationships between motor cortex and linguistic representation.
► Three groups of healthy participants were submitted to tDCS of the left primary motor cortex.
► We examined their performance in a picture recognition task.
► Cathodal stimulation improves the participants’ ability to detect mismatching associations.
► Results suggest that motor cortex play a role in detecting dissonant outcomes.