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Updated: Jul 15, 2026

Mapping Cortical Dynamics Using Simultaneous MEG/EEG and Anatomically-constrained Minimum-norm Estimates: an Auditory Attention Example
Published on: October 24, 2012
Functional neuroanatomy of the cognitive process of mapping during discourse comprehension
D A Robertson1, M A Gernsbacher, S J Guidotti
1Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1202 W. Johnson St., Madison, WI 53706, USA. darobert@facstaff.wisc.edu
Abstract:
We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify brain regions involved in the process of mapping coherent discourse onto a developing mental representation. We manipulated discourse coherence by presenting sentences with definite articles (which lead to more coherent discourse) or indefinite articles (which lead to less coherent discourse). Comprehending connected discourse, compared with reading unrelated sentences, produced more neural activity in the right than left hemisphere of the frontal lobe. Thus, the right hemisphere of the frontal lobe is involved in some of the processes underlying mapping. In contrast, left-hemisphere structures were associated with lower-level processes in reading (such as word recognition and syntactic processing). Our results demonstrate the utility of using fMRI to investigate the neural substrates of higher-level cognitive processes such as discourse comprehension.
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