Left-hemisphere parieto-frontal interactions during phonologic and semantic word decisions. A conditioning-and-perturb TMS study

Introduction: Left supramarginal gyrus (SMG) and posterior inferior frontal gyrus (pIFG) have been identified as key areas for phonologic decisions while angular gyrus (ANG) and anterior IFG (aIFG) have been associated with semantic processing (1,2). We investigated the relevance of intact interactions between these areas by means of a conditioning-and-perturb repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) approach. Methods: 17 healthy right-handers underwent 4 sessions of conditioning and perturbing rTMS, combining offline rTMS before a task and online rTMS during a task over different areas. In one sessio…