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Where Is the Semantic System? A Critical Review and Meta-Analysis of 120 Functional Neuroimaging Studies
Open accessAbstract
Semantic memory refers to knowledge about people, objects, actions, relations, self, and culture acquired through experience. The neural systems that store and retrieve this information have been studied for many years, but a consensus regarding their identity has not been reached. Using strict inclusion criteria, we analyzed 120 functional neuroimaging studies focusing on semantic processing. Reliable areas of activation in these studies were identified using the activation likelihood estimate (ALE) technique. These activations formed a distinct, left-lateralized network comprised of 7 regions: posterior inferior parietal lobe, middle temporal gyrus, fusiform and parahippocampal gyri, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and posterior cingulate gyrus. Secondary analyses showed specific subregions of this network associated with knowledge of actions, manipulable artifacts, abstract concepts, and concrete concepts. The cortical regions involved in semantic processing can be grouped into 3 broad categories: posterior multimodal and heteromodal association cortex, heteromodal prefrontal cortex, and medial limbic regions. The expansion of these regions in the human relative to the nonhuman primate brain may explain uniquely human capacities to use language productively, plan, solve problems, and create cultural and technological artifacts, all of which depend on the fluid and efficient retrieval and manipulation of semantic knowledge.
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“Finally, the dmPFC is hypothesized to support abstracting affective meaning of stimuli or the processes of self-reflecting and identifying one’s own affective reactions to stimuli [121, 126–130].”
From Prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and threat processing: implications for PTSD (2022) · cites this paper as [127]
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“Second, the location of the DMN as equidistant from all sensory/motor systems is aligned with its broad range of functions that require integration between multiple sensory systems, including episodic [51] and semantic memory [52-54], social cognition [55, 56], goal-directed working memory tasks [26, 32, 33, 35] and reward-guided decision making [57, 58].”
From Situating the default-mode network along a principal gradient of macroscale cortical organization (2016) · cites this paper as [52]
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“DMN nodes in the lateral temporal and lateral parietal cortices are consistently implicated in language comprehension and semantic processing.”
From 20 years of the default mode network: A review and synthesis. (2023) · cites this paper as [55]
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“Meta-analyses have confirmed significant overlap between the DMN and language and semantic processing systems.”
From 20 years of the default mode network: A review and synthesis. (2023) · cites this paper as [55]
In the citing paper
“Accordingly, movie-viewing to spoken-recall pattern correlations were not found in low-level sensory areas, but instead were located in high-level DMN areas, which have been previously found to encode amodal abstract information (Binder et al. 2009; Honey et al. 2012; Regev et al. 2013).”
From How We Transmit Memories to Other Brains: Constructing Shared Neural Representations Via Communication (2017) · cites this paper as Binder et al. 2009
In the citing paper
“However, it is difficult (if not impossible) to determine whether any one detail is represented perceptually or conceptually on the basis of verbal descriptions alone, and neuroimaging profiles have not (as of yet) resolved the issue given that episodic and semantic memory engage overlapping DMN regions (Binder, Desai, Graves, & Conant, 2009;Burianova & Grady, 2007).”
From Mental Time Travel? A Neurocognitive Model of Event Simulation. (2020) · cites this paper as Binder, Desai, Graves, & Conant, 2009
In the citing paper
“This position is supported by recent evidence, which showed that a network of regions in the left temporal and parietal heteromodal cortex activates when healthy individuals engage in internal mentation such as episodic and autobiographical retrieval, prospection and planning, creativity and problem-solving (Buckner et al., 2008), as well as semantic processing (Binder et al., 2009).”
From Considering the role of semantic memory in episodic future thinking: evidence from semantic dementia (2012) · cites this paper as Binder et al., 2009
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“If semantic memory forms a critical component of past episodic retrieval (Levine, 2004;Greenberg and Verfaellie, 2010), and underlies much of internally driven cognition (Binder et al., 2009), it follows that the construction and elaboration of fictitious scenes, and personal future events, should also draw on semantic knowledge (Irish et al., 2012).”
From Considering the role of semantic memory in episodic future thinking: evidence from semantic dementia (2012) · cites this paper as Binder et al., 2009
In the citing paper
“The SORT not only activates brain regions involved in semantic memory recall, which include bilateral inferior frontal gyrus (including Broca's area), left DLPFC, left middle temporal gyrus, bilateral angular gyrus, and PCC [Assaf et al., 2006;Binder et al., 2009], but also activates salience-related regions, including dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), pre-SMA [Assaf et al., 2006] and”
From Specific default mode subnetworks support mentalizing as revealed through opposing network recruitment by social and semantic FMRI tasks: Mentalizing and Default-Mode Subnetworks (2015) · cites this paper as Binder et al., 2009
In the citing paper
“In particular, autobiographical memory supplies numerous building blocks of social semantic knowledge (Bar 2007; Binder et al. 2009).”
From Parsing the neural correlates of moral cognition: ALE meta-analysis on morality, theory of mind, and empathy (2012) · cites this paper as Binder et al. 2009
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Metadata
- Authors
- Binder, J. R., Desai, R. H., Graves, W. W., & Conant, L. L.
- Affiliations
- Medical College of Wisconsin (US)
- Venue
- Cerebral Cortex
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2009-03-27
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 2767-2796
- ISSN
- 1047-3211 (ISSN-L)
- 1460-2199
- PMC
- PMC2774390
- OpenAlex
- W2112891119
- Semantic Scholar
- f6865ed39f0fc55b43c5d6b93e8ca597a21a9ccb
- Cited by
- 4,060
- References
- 439
- Citations by year
- 2026: 208 · 2025: 280 · 2024: 226 · 2023: 244 · 2022: 331 · 2021: 270 · 2020: 359 · 2019: 288 · 2018: 239 · 2017: 268 · 2016: 257 · 2015: 269 · 2014: 206 · 2013: 211 · 2012: 172
- FWCI
- 9.41
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Cerebral Cortex (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Scholar Commons (University of South Carolina) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health
- National Institute of Mental Health (T32MH019992)
- National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (R03DC008416, R01DC006287)
- National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (R01NS033576, R01NS035929)
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (F32HD056767)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Reading and Literacy Development
- Keywords
- semantic memory, semantic processing, semantic system, artificial neural networks, middle temporal gyrus, fusiform gyrus, parahippocampal gyrus, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, action knowledge, abstract concepts, concrete concepts, human evolution, primate brain, language, prefrontal cortex, association cortex
- MeSH terms
- Brain, Brain Mapping, Cognition, Humans, Memory, Models, Neurological, Nerve Net, Neuroradiography, Semantics
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