<Originals>Bilateral Facilitation of Hand-motor Cortices During a Reading Task

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We investigated the effect of performing reading aloud tasks at different vocal volumes on the excitability of the hand-motor cortex, as assessed by motor evoked potential (MEP) evoked by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), in both right-and left-handed subjects. TMS was applied to right and left hand-motor cortices in all subjects, and MEPs were recorded from both left- and right-first dorsal interosseous muscles, respectively. Increased excitability of the left motor cortex compared to the right one was confirmed during loud reading in the right-handed subjects only, as previously reported. Furthermore, we found bilateral facilitation of the hand-motor cortices during reading at normal conversational volume, irrespective of differences of the subject's handedness. Weak activation of the jaw muscle to a level comparable with its activation during the reading task did not affect the excitability of hand-motor cortices of either hemisphere, indicating that activation of the oral motor cortex and the activation of the jaw muscle afferents do not substantially contribute to the excitability of hand-motor cortex. In addition, we showed that watching a video clip of another person reading also induced bilateral facilitation of the hand-motor cortices. Our findings suggest that reading-induced bilateral facilitation of hand-motor cortices may be caused by activation of the mirror neuron system as functional coupling between Broca's area and hand-motor cortex. We also consider the relevance of these findings to the bimanual hand gesture often observed during conversations in daily life.

<Originals>Bilateral Facilitation of Hand-motor Cortices During a Reading Task

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