Rapid syntactic pre-activation in Broca's area: Concurrent electrophysiological and haemodynamic recordings

Listeners are constantly trying to predict what the speaker will say next. We concurrently measured the electrophysiological and haemodynamic correlates of syntactic pre-activation, investigating when and where the brain processes speech melody cues to upcoming word order structure. Pre-activation of syntactic structure was reflected in a left-lateralised pre-activation negativity (PrAN), which was subserved by Broca's area in the left inferior frontal gyrus, as well as the contiguous left anterior insula. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.