A Neural Causal Study Of The Left Middle Frontal Gyrus In Executive Control Processing During Chinese Character Readin

Cognitive neuroscience studies on vocabulary reading have found that the left middle frontal gyrus(MFG)is considered to be the brain region specifically activated in Chinese character reading,but its involvement in cognitive processing of reading is still controversial.Some studies believe that its participation in the activation is due to the unique spatial structure processing of Chinese characters,and other studies believe that its participation in the activation is related to the general executive control processing.In this study,transcranial magnetic stimulation(TMS)was used to virtually damage the left MFG,and to investigate whether the activation of the left MFG was affected by general executive control processing in Chinese reading from the perspective of neural causality.In experiment 1,functional near infrared spectroscopy(f NIRS)technique was used to investigate whether MFG brain region was affected by both text material and general executive control processing.In experiment 2,TMS was further used to simulate MFG activation and establish a neural causal relationship between MFG activation and cognitive processing.In experiment 1,it was found that both front and rear channels of left MFG showed sensitive activation for executive control processing,that is,MFG activation was stronger in dual-task switching condition than in single-task condition.The main effect of text and its interaction with executive control were not found in MFG channel.The results showed that MFG was involved in the activation of general executive control processing in Chinese reading.In experiment 2,TMS inhibitory stimulation was applied to the anterior of MFG,and the brain region was activated without text material,the main effect of executive control and their interaction,and the sensitivity of the brain region to executive control processing disappeared.At this time,although the rear MFG did not have the main effect of Chinese character material and its interaction with executive control processing,the posterior of MFG was still sensitive to executive control processing,and the opposite effect appeared,the posterior of MFG rear was more activated in the single task than in the dual task switch condition.This study provides direct physiological evidence for the involvement of left MFG in the activation of Chinese character reading from the perspective of neurocausality.The results showed that the activation of the left MFG was related to the general executive control processing,and the anterior and posterior of MFG were sensitive to the general executive control processing;There is neural overlap between Chinese reading network and executive control network in left MFG.