RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Cerebellar-Parietal Connections Underpin Phonological Storage
JF The Journal of Neuroscience
JO J. Neurosci.
FD Society for Neuroscience
SP 5029
OP 5037
DO 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0106-14.2014
VO 34
IS 14
A1 Katja Macher
A1 Andreas Böhringer
A1 Arno Villringer
A1 Burkhard Pleger
YR 2014
UL http://www.jneurosci.org/content/34/14/5029.abstract
AB Previous research has accumulated convincing evidence to show that the human cerebellum contributes to the short-term storage of verbal information, but its specific role in brain networks involved in phonological storage remains uncertain. In a randomized, crossover and sham-controlled design, we here combined transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), applied to the right cerebellum, with fMRI to investigate systematically the contribution of the human cerebellum to encoding, maintenance, and retrieval of verbal information. After anodal, but not cathodal, tDCS, we found a reduced item recognition capacity together with an attenuated neural signal from the right cerebellar lobule VIIb, specifically during the late encoding phase. Within this phase, tDCS furthermore affected task-associated functional connections between right cerebellar lobule VIIb and the posterior parietal cortex. These findings suggest that the right cerebellar lobule VIIb interacts with the posterior parietal cortex, specifically during the late stages of verbal encoding, when verbal information enters phonological storage.