Newly acquired word-action associations trigger auditory cortex activation during movement preparation: Implications for Hebbian plasticity in action word learning.

Abstract

Action word learning is believed to rely on mechanisms of Hebbian learning. However, this biological mechanism requires activation of the neural assemblies representing a word form and a corresponding movement to repeatedly overlap in time. In reality, though, these associated events could be separated by seconds. In the current MEG study, we examined trial-and-error learning of associations between novel auditory pseudowords and movements of specific body parts. We aimed to explore how the brain bridges the temporal gap between the transient activity evoked by auditory input and the preparatory motor activation before the corresponding movement. To address this, we compared learning-induced changes in neuromagnetic responses locked to the onset of the stimulus and to the onset of the movement. As learning progressed, both types of neural responses showed sustained enhancement during the delay period between the auditory pseudoword and the required movement. Cortical sources of this learning-induced increase were localized bilaterally in the lateral and medial temporal cortices. Notably, the learning effect was significantly stronger when measured time-locked to the movement onset, rather than to the pseudoword onset. This suggests that once pseudoword-movement associations were reliably acquired, extensive regions of the auditory cortex were reactivated in synchrony with the preparation for the upcoming movement. Such reactivation likely served to bring together in time the representations of the correct action and the preceding auditory cue. This temporal alignment could enable Hebbian learning, leading to long-lasting synaptic changes in temporally correlated neural assemblies.