Traces of Statistical Learning in Functional Connectivity after Artificial Language Exposure

Traces of Statistical Learning in Functional Connectivity after Artificial Language Exposure

Pallabi Sengupta1, Gorka Zamora-López1, Miguel Burgaleta1, Gustavo Deco1,2, Núria Sebastián-Gallés1,2

1. Center for Brain and Cognition, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

2. ICREA

One fundamental step when learning a new language is to segment words from the speech signal. To achieve this, humans rely on Statistical Learning (SL), a domain-general ability that enables the implicit detection of probabilistic regularities in our surrounding environment. The role of brain connectivity on SL has been previously explored, highlighting the relevance of structural and functional connections between frontal, parietal, and temporal cortices. However, whether SL can induce changes in the functional connections of the resting state brain has yet to be investigated. To address this question, we applied a pre-post design where participants (n=38) were submitted to resting-state fMRI acquisition before and after in-scanner exposure to either an artificial language stream (formed by 4 concatenated words) or a random audio stream. We then adapted, for the first time, a technique well used in genetic studies to compare connectivity changes in the active links between the two conditions. Our results showed that exposure to an artificial language stream significantly changed (corrected p < .05) the functional connectivity between Right Superior Parietal Gyrus and
Left Inferior Parietal Lobule, as well as between Left Middle Frontal Gyrus and Left Inferior Frontal Gyrus, Orbital Part.