The neural organization of conceptual action knowledge

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Moritz Wurm, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology ; Human Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience
• Term: from 2015 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 276877591

The question how neural specificity for distinct conceptual knowledge categories arises is central for understanding the organization of semantic memory in the brain. However, while there is a large body of research on the neural processing of distinct object categories, the organization of action categories remains virtually unknown. In particular, it has never been investigated if actions of different categories are processed in specialized brain regions, analogously to category-specific regions found for object knowledge. Based on the assumption that recognition of certain action categories became increasingly relevant in evolutionary history, the proposed research tests the hypothesis that conceptual action knowledge is organized along two major distinctions from non-social to social and from object-unrelated to object-related actions. The neuroanatomical organization of action categories along these dimensions is expected to be determined by connectivity-based constraints from associated object knowledge. The proposed project uses multivariate decoding of neuroimaging (fMRI) data and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to identify brain regions that encode category-specific conceptual action knowledge. Functional connectivity analysis is used to determine the neuroanatomical relation between action and object knowledge. This research will uncover the neural organization of action knowledge at a broad level and thereby pave the way for in-depth studies of how actions of distinct categories are organized in the brain. Results will have a significant impact on our understanding of memory and recognition systems in the brain.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: USA
• Host: Professor Dr. Alfonso Caramazza