Brain Rhythms in Object Recognition and Manipulation

Abstract

Our manual interactions with objects represent the most fundamental activity in our everyday life. Whereas the grasp of an object is driven by the perceptual senses, using an object for its function relies on learnt experience to retrieve. Recent theories explain how the brain takes decisions based on perceptual information, yet the question of how does it retrieve object knowledge to use tools remains unanswered. Discovering the neuronal implementation of the retrieval of object knowledge would help understanding praxic impairments and provide appropriate neurorehabilitation. This thesis reports five investigations on the neuronal oscillatory activity involved in accessing object knowledge. Employing an original paradigm combining EEG recordings with tool use training in virtual reality, I demonstrated that beta oscillations are crucial to the retrieval of object knowledge during object recognition. Multiple evidence points toward an access to object knowledge during the 300 to 400 ms of visual processing. The different topographies of the beta oscillations suggest that tool knowledge is encoded in distinct brain areas but generally located within the left hemisphere. Importantly, learning action information about an object has consequences on its manipulations. Multiplying tool use knowledge about an object increases the beta desynchronization and slows down motor control. Furthermore, the present data report an influence of language on object manipulations and beta oscillations, in a way that learning the name of an object speeds up its use while impedes its grasp. This shred of evidence led to the formulation of three testable hypotheses extending contemporary theories of object manipulation and semantic memory. First, the preparation of object transportation or use could be distinguished by the synchronization/desynchronization patterns of mu and beta rhythms. Second, action competitions originate from both perceptuo-motor and memory systems. Third, accessing to semantic object knowledge during object processing could be indexed by the bursts of desynchronization of high-beta oscillations in the brain.