Papel do córtex pré-frontal medial na compreensão da linguagem figurada: experimento com eletroencefalografia e estimulação cerebral não-invasiva

• Ano de defesa: 2014
• Autor(a) principal: Baptista, Nathalia Ishikawa
• Orientador(a): Boggio, Paulo Sérgio
• Banca de defesa: Macedo, Elizeu Coutinho de , Navas, Ana Luiza Gomes Pinto
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie
• Programa de Pós-Graduação: Distúrbios do Desenvolvimento
• Departamento: Psicologia
• País: BR
• Palavras-chave em Português: ironia; Teoria da Mente; estimulação transcraniana por corrente contínua; eletroencefalografia; ERP; córtex pré-frontal medial
• Palavras-chave em Inglês: irony; Theory of Mind; transcranial direct current stimulation; eletroencephalography; ERP; Medial Prefrontal Cortex
• Área do conhecimento CNPq: CNPQ::CIENCIAS HUMANAS::PSICOLOGIA::PSICOLOGIA FISIOLOGICA::NEUROLOGIA, ELETROFISIOLOGIA E COMPORTAMENTO
• Link de acesso: http://dspace.mackenzie.br/handle/10899/22559

Verbal irony is a figurative form of communication between human beings, to understand it a specific ability to infer and predict the ironist intention is essential called Theory of Mind. Currently researches using spatial correlation techniques showed activation of the Medial Prefrontal Cortex (MPFC) on irony comprehension tasks. Thus, this thesis aimed to investigate the role of this area irony comprehension. Therefore the Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) was used, i.e. the induction of low intensity electric current on specific cortical structures. The effects of stimulation depend on the current polarity, and thus, it is possible to investigate how the modulation of target area affects the performance in a cognitive task. Thus, 60 participants were recruited; they were all right handed and match the inclusion criteria. They were allocated to one of three groups of stimulation (anode, cathode or placebo), and received the tDCS for twenty minutes over the MPFC. After, the participants performed a test of verbal irony comprehension, with 204 stories visually presented. This phase was conducted during the EEG recording of the participants. Thus, the effects of tDCS over MPFC were accessed by: i. the behavioral test performance (measured by total score and average reaction time); ii. the brain activity underlying the task (measured by event-related evoked potentials - ERP - N400 and P600). The results indicate the involvement of the MPFC in semantic integration of affective aspects of figurative language. The increased cortical excitability of the area (anodal stimulation) resulted in a decrease of cognitive demand to integrate these aspects; in addition, it decreased the reaction time for the semantic incongruences. Thus, our results indicate that irony comprehension depends on the integration of information: cognitive and affective. Hence for a true appreciation of it s meaning is necessary to develop language skills as well the Theory of Mind.