Over the past 20 years, brain oscillations have proven to be a gateway to the understanding of cognitive processes. It has been shown that different neurocognitive aspects of language processing are associated with brain oscillations at various frequencies. Frequencies in the beta range (13–30 Hz) turned out to be particularly important with respect to cognitive and linguistic manipulations during language processing. Beta activity has been involved in higher-order linguistic functions such as the discrimination of word categories and the retrieval of action semantics as well as semantic memory, and syntactic binding processes, which support meaning construction during sentence processing. From a neurophysiological point of view, the important role of the beta frequencies for such a complex cognitive task as language processing seems reasonable. Experimental evidence suggests that frequencies in the beta range are ideal for maintaining and preserving the activity of neuronal assemblies over time. In particular, recent computational and experimental evidence suggest that beta frequencies are important for linking past and present input and the detection of novelty of stimuli, which are essential processes for language perception as well as production. In addition, the beta frequency’s role in the formation of cell assemblies underlying short-term memory seems indispensable for language analysis. Probably the most important point is the well-known relation of beta oscillations with motor processes. It can be speculated that beta activities reflect the close relationship between language comprehension and motor functions, which is one of the core claims of current theories on embodied cognition. In this article, the importance of beta oscillations for language processing is reviewed based both on findings in psychophysiological and neurophysiological literature.

Brain oscillations in the α- and β-range become suppressed during motor processing and motor imagery. It has recently been discussed that such power changes also occur during action language processing. In our study, we compared β2-oscillations (16-25Hz) during the observation of prototypical arm movements (revealed via motion tracking) as well as during semantic processing of concrete and abstract sentences containing arm-related action verbs. Whereas we did find a strong desynchronization in the β2-range during action observation, the processing of action sentences evoked a rather weak desynchronization. However, this desynchronization occurred for action verbs in both concrete and abstract contexts. These results might indicate a tendency for abstract action language to be processed similar to concrete action language rather than abstract sentences. The oscillation patterns reflect the close relationship between language comprehension and motor functions - one of the core claims of current theories on embodied cognition.

Cognitive linguistics proposes the existence of a human language lexicon as a necessary subsystem of language production and comprehension. While the inner structure of the lexicon remains speculative, measures of its function may distinguish separate processing paths for different types of lexical entries. Based upon the presented findings on nomina from reaction time measurements, event-related potentials (ERP) analysis, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the special role of proper names in language--in contrast to common nouns--appears to be grounded in a neurocognitive reality.

Multi-modal discourse comprehension requires speakers to combine information from speech and gestures. To date, little research has addressed the cognitive resources that underlie these processes. Here we used a dual-task paradigm to test the relative importance of verbal and visuospatial working memory in speech-gesture comprehension. Healthy, college-aged participants encoded either a series of digits (verbal load) or a series of dot locations in a grid (visuospatial load) and rehearsed them (secondary memory task) as they performed a (primary) multi-modal discourse comprehension task. Regardless of the secondary task, performance on the discourse comprehension task was better when the speaker’s gestures and speech were congruent than when they were incongruent. However, the congruity advantage was smaller when the concurrent memory task involved a visuospatial load than when it involved a verbal load. Results suggest that taxing the visuospatial working memory system reduced participants’ ability to benefit from the information in congruent iconic gestures. A control experiment demonstrated that results were not an artifact of the difficulty of the visuospatial load task. Overall, these data suggest speakers recruit visuospatial working memory to interpret gestures about concrete visual scenes.

Background: The goal of this study was to investigate whether the combination of semantic feature analysis (SFA) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is effective in treating word retrieval in the semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia (svPPA) and how long the potential effects last. Methods: A 56-year-old woman diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and svPPA participated in this longitudinal single-subject design. A total of four 2-week stimulation phases were conducted over a 14-month period, each of which was started depending on the participant’s language performance. Follow-up testing was conducted shortly after the stimulation period, approximately 2 weeks, and approximately 4 weeks thereafter. Results: Significant improvement in word retrieval occurred after SFA and tDCS therapy. Two weeks after the end of each stimulation phase, approx. 80% of the trained words could be named correctly. For the untrained words, also significantly more words were correctly named at follow-ups compared to the baseline. Furthermore, the Boston Naming Test (BNT) demonstrated a significant increase in naming performance and showed that phonological cues facilitated word retrieval compared to semantic cues. Conclusion: The combination of SFA and tDCS was able to counteract the expected language deterioration of a participant with svPPA. This effect increased until approximately 2 weeks after each intervention. In addition, a generalization of the effect to untrained words was shown.

Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) is an atypical Parkinsonian disorder which results in deterioration of motor and cognitive skills, including language disorders such as impaired word retrieval. While there is evidence of successful use of tDCS to improve word fluency in PSP, little is known about the effectiveness of brain stimulation for word retrieval in sentence context. Therefore, we investigated whether tDCS reduces sentence completion time in PSP patients. In this sham-controlled, triple-blinded crossover study, anodal tDCS (atDCS) was applied over the left Broca’s area at 2 mA for 20 min (n = 23). In contrast to patients with multiple system atrophy (MSA), also an atypical Parkinsonian disorder, and healthy elderlies, sentence completion improved in PSP patients when tDCS was applied. The improvement in word fluency reported in previous studies using other electrode positions was not replicated. By using atDCS of the left Broca’s area, we were able to demonstrate a difference between the two movement disorders. The obtained insight could be helpful to improve language therapy of these disorders.