


OHTA Shinri | Last modified date:2022.12.08 |

Associate Professor /
Department of Language and Literature /
Faculty of Humanities
Presentations
1. | Investigating the neural basis of Rendaku using mismatch negativity: Is violation of Lyman's law different from phonological deviance?. |
2. | Special Symposium: Neuroscience of language opening the way to the future of linguistics. |
3. | What is the missing link between linguistics and neuroscience?. |
4. | Shinri Ohta, Modulating neural activation in the language areas: A transcranial electrical stimulation study, SNU Linguistic Colloquium, 2022.04. |
5. | Investigation of the neural basis of rendaku (sequential voicing) using mismatch negativity: Differences between phonological deviants and violation of Moto-ori Lyman’s law in Japanese compound words. |
6. | Neuroscience experiments uncover the mysteries of language! Introduction of Ohta Lab at Kyushu University. |
7. | Effect of morphological complexity of words on event-related potential N400. |
8. | Attention modulates the alpha and beta oscillations during semantic prediction: An MEG study. |
9. | The past and future of neural activity data analysis from the neuroscientist’s point of view. |
10. | Neuroscience of language: Linguistics × neuroscience to explore the mysteries of language. |
11. | Jun Nakajima, Shinri Ohta, Modulation of the N400 by morphological composition and lexical access: An ERP study of Japanese derived nouns, 13th Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language, 2021.10. |
12. | Shinri Ohta, Wakana Oishi, Selective disruption of sentence comprehension by transcranial alternating current stimulation over the left inferior frontal cortex, 13th Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language, 2021.10. |
13. | Jun Nakajima, Shinri Ohta, Decompositional similarities between semantically transparent and lexicalized suffixation in Japanese: An ERP study, International Symposium on Issues in Japanese Psycholinguistics from Comparative Perspectives, 2021.09. |
14. | Shinri Ohta, Wakana Oishi, Selective modulation of sentence comprehension by tACS over the left inferior frontal cortex, Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing, 2021, 2021.09, Previous neuroimaging studies have proposed that the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) was crucial for constructing hierarchical syntactic structures (Ohta et al. 2013, Zaccarella et al. 2017). Moreover, another neuroimaging study has demonstrated the cortical activity of differ-ent frequency bands, which corresponded to syllabic, phrasal, and sentential rates, suggest-ing grammar-based internal construction of the hierarchical linguistic structure (Ding et al. 2016). Using transcranial alternating stimulation (tACS), which can modulate the specific fre-quency band of the cortical activity non-invasively (Antal & Paulus 2013), we examined whether the modulation of the cortical activity that corresponded to sentence structure con-struction changed sentence comprehension. We hypothesize that tACS at the sentential rate disrupts the internal construction of the hierarchical sentence structure, which may increase the difficulty of sentence comprehension. We recruited 15 right-handed native speakers of Japanese (8 males, mean ± SD = 21.9 ± 0.8 years), who had no history of neurological or psychiatric diseases. The same par-ticipants were tested for both the tACS session and sham session (Fig. 1A). We used 96 Japanese sentences and 96 word-strings (total 192 stimuli). Each sentence stimulus consist-ed of three noun phrases and one verb, immediately followed by a question consisted of a subject and a verb (Fig. 1B). Each word list stimulus consisted of four noun or verb phrases, immediately followed by a pair of words (Fig. 1C). In the present experiment, we used a sen-tence comprehension task and a short-term memory task. In the sentence comprehension task, the participants judged whether the meaning of the sentence matched with the question by pressing one of two buttons, while in the short-term memory task, they judged which of the words in a word pair was included in the word string. We used a double-blinded sham-controlled design. Stimulation was delivered using DC-Stimulator Plus (NeuroConn, Germany). The two electrodes were placed over F7 and Fp2 according to the International 10-20 EEG system, which were right above the left IFG and the right forehead, respectively. For tACS, stimulation was given for 20 minutes (±2 mA, 0.5 Hz, 5 cm * 7 cm saline-soaked sponge elec-trodes, >10 kΩ). We used 0.5-Hz stimulation that corresponded to the sentential rate of the sentence comprehension task. Sham stimulation, which controls for the placebo effect, ramped up to ±2 mA over 10 s, remained at that level for 30 s, ramped back down over 10 s. In the sham session, the participants felt the initial ramp up event, which is the most noticeable in tACS, without receiving an effective stimulation in the tACS. Before and after the tACS and sham sessions, the participants performed the sentence comprehension and short-term memory tasks. The participants showed high accuracies (>90%) and short reaction times to compre-hension questions (RTs, <1000 ms) (Fig. 2). A two-way repeated-measures analysis of vari-ance (Stimulation (baseline, tACS, and Sham) * task (sentence vs. memory)) for the accura-cies did not show any significant effects (Stimulation: F(2,28) = 0.78, p = 0.49; Task: F(1,14) = 0.48, p = 0.50; interaction: F(2,28) = 0.49, p = 0.62). A two-way repeated-measures analysis of variance for the RTs did not show significant main effects (Stimulation: F(2,28) = 2.6, p = 0.09; Task: F(1,14) = 1.5, p = 0.24), while the interaction was significant (F(2,28) = 4.5, p = 0.02). To consider the random variabilities of participants and stimuli, we analyzed the RTs by using a linear mixed-effect model (lme4 and lmerTest packages on R). We found that the model with the effects of Stimulation (baseline vs. tACS vs. Sham) and Task (sentence vs. memory) (full model) was significantly better than the simpler model without the effect of Stimulation (𝝌2(4) = 18, p = 0.0013), suggesting the effect of tACS was significant (Table 1). Moreover, the sham stimulation over the left IFG significantly decreased the RTs of the sen-tence comprehension task (t(2510) = −3.7, p = 0.0002), indicating the learning effect. In con-trast, the tACS over the left IFG did not show such effect (t(2505) = −1.7, p = 0.08) (Fig. 3). In the present tACS study, we demonstrated that the tACS over the left IFG disrupted the sen-tence comprehension task but not short-term memory task, suggesting the causal relation-ship between the left IFG activation and sentence structure constructions.. |
15. | Shinri Ohta, Selective facilitation of sentence comprehension by tACS over the left inferior frontal region, Neuroscience2021, 2021.07. |
16. | Jun Nakajima, Shinri Ohta, Modulation of the N170 ERP component by morphological decomposition: An ERP study of Japanese derived nouns, Neuroscience2021, 2021.07. |
17. | Emi Yamada, Kazuki Yanai, Hiroshi Shigeto, Shinri Ohta, Attention modulates the alpha and beta oscillations during semantic prediction, Neuroscience2021, 2021.07. |
18. | Examination of the facilitation of sentence processing by transcranial electric stimulation over the left inferior frontal cortex. |
19. | Shinri OHTA, Selective modulation of syntactic processing by anodal tDCS over the left inferior frontal region, The 34th CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, 2021.03, Previous neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) is critical for syntactic processing. To test the causal relationship between the left IFG activation and syntactic processing, we examined whether anodal (i.e. excitatory) transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), a non-invasive brain stimulation technique applicable in humans, over the left IFG facilitates syntactic processing. We hypothesize that behavioral performance of sentences with additional syntactic loads (e.g. passive sentences) is improved by the anodal tDCS. We recruited 20 right-handed native speakers of Japanese (10 males, mean ± SD = 22.5±0.8 years), who had no history of neurological or psychiatric diseases. The same participants were tested for both anodal stimulation session and sham session (Fig. 1A). We used 30 Japanese sentences for each of active intransitive (e.g., Taro-to Hanako-ga aruita, Taro and Hanako walked), active transitive (Taro-ga Hanako-o tataita, Taro hit Hanako), passive intransitive (Hanako-ga Taro-ni arukareta, Hanako was adversely affected by Taro’s walking), and passive transitive sentences (Hanako-ga Taro-ni tatakareta, Hanako was hit by Taro) (total 120 stimuli). To examine the effect of active/passive voice as well as that of transitivity, we used these four sentence types. Note that the passive intransitive sentences, the so-called indirect passive, are grammatical in Japanese. Each sentence consisted of two noun phrases and one verb, immediately followed by a question consisted of a subject and a verb (e.g., Taro-ga aruita?, Did Taro walk?). In the present experiment, we used a sentence comprehension task, in which the participants were instructed to judge whether the meaning of the sentence matched with the question by pressing one of two buttons. We used a single-blinded sham-controlled design. Stimulation was delivered using DC-Stimulator Plus (NeuroConn GmbH, Germany). The anode and cathode electrodes were placed over F5 and F6 according to the International 10-20 EEG system, which were right above the left and right IFG, respectively. For anodal tDCS, stimulation was given for 20 minutes (1 mA, 5 cm * 7 cm saline-soaked sponge electrodes). Sham stimulation, which controls for the placebo effect, ramped up to 1 mA over 10 s, remained at that level for 30 s, ramped back down over 10 s. In the sham session, the participants felt the initial ramp up event, which is the most noticeable in tDCS, without receiving an effective stimulation in the anodal tDCS. Before and after the anodal and sham stimulations, the participants performed the sentence comprehension task (Pre and Post task). The participants showed high accuracies (> 90%) and short reaction times to comprehension questions (RTs, <1600 ms) for all of the four conditions (Fig. 1B, 1C). A three-way repeated-measures analysis of variance (rANOVA) (Stimulation*Condition*Pre/Post) for the accuracies showed significant main effects of Condition (F(3,57)=11, p<.0001) and Pre/Post (F(1,19)=8.4, p=.009), while the main effect of Stimulation and interactions were not significant (p>.18). The rANOVA for the RTs also showed significant main effects of Condition (F(3,57)=42, p<.0001) and Pre/Post (F(1,19)=21, p=.0002), as well as the interaction of these factors (F(3,57)=3.7, p=.002). These results suggest that the active intransitive condition was easiest, while the passive conditions were more demanding. The significant main effect of the Pre/Post also shows the learning eff¬ect. To consider the random variabilities of participants and stimuli, we further analyzed the RTs by using a linear mixed-effect model (lme4 and lmerTest packages on R). We found that the model with the effect of Stimulation was significantly better than the simpler model without such effect (𝝌2(3)=38, p<.0001), suggesting the effect of anodal tDCS. Moreover, the anodal stimulation over the left IFG significantly decreased the RTs of the passive sentences (p=.002, Fig 1D). In the present tDCS study, we demonstrated that the anodal tDCS over the left IFG facilitated the processing of syntactically more demanding passive sentences, suggesting the causal relationship between the left IFG activation and syntactic processing.. |
20. | Daniel C. Gallagher, Masataka Yano, Shinri Ohta, Modality effects in morphosyntactic and orthographic/phonological violation processing: Preliminary ERP results of native Spanish speakers, 第6回坂本勉記念神経科学研究会, 2021.02. |
21. | Daniel C. Gallagher, Masataka Yano, Shinri Ohta, Modality effects in processing misspelling and mispronunciations: Preliminary ERP results of native Spanish speakers, 言語学フェス2021, 2021.01. |
22. | Jun Nakajima, Shinri Ohta, Decompositional similarities between semantically transparent and opaque suffixation in Japanese: An ERP study, AMLaP Asia 2020, 2020.12. |
23. | Daniel C. Gallagher, Masataka Yano, Shinri Ohta, Modality-specific language processing of Spanish morphosyntactic and orthographic/phonological violations: An ERP study, AMLaP Asia 2020, 2020.12. |
24. | Shinri Ohta, Kazuki Maeno, Facilitation of syntactic processing by anodal tDCS over the left inferior frontal gyrus, 12th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL2020), 2020.10. |
25. | Daniel C. Gallagher, Masataka Yano, Shinri Ohta, The L1 & L2 syntactic P600 across visual & auditory modalities: Preliminary ERP findings, SNL 2020, 2020.10. |
26. | On explanatory and operating principles: Examination based on theoretical linguistics, neuroscience experiments, and computational modeling. |
27. | Shinri Ohta, Know thyself: Why we should study language and the brain, The Networking Platform for Co-creating Research (ENCORe) Interdisciplinary Networking Workshop, 2020.08. |
28. | 太田真理, 前野一喜, Transcranial direct current stimulation over the left inferior frontal gyrus modulates syntactic processing, 第43回日本神経科学大会, 2020.07. |
29. | 太田 真理, 大関 洋平, アレック・マランツ, Morpheme processing in the ventral temporal lobe: An MEG study of Japanese verbs, Science of Aphasia XX, 2019.09. |
30. | Shinri Ohta, Yohei Oseki, Alec Marantz, Dissociating the effects of morphemes and letters in visual word recognition: An MEG study of Japanese verbs, AMLaP 2019, 2019.09, Previous magnetoencephalography (MEG) studies reported that transition probability between morphemes (morphTP) was correlated with the amplitude of the activation in the left fusiform and inferior temporal gyri (L. FG/ITG) around 170 ms after the onset of visual stimuli (M170). However, it is difficult to examine whether the M170 is modulated by morphTP or transition probability between letters (letterTP). To dissociate the effects of morphTP and letterTP on the L. FG/ITG, we targeted the Japanese verbs, in which morphological boundaries do not always correspond to letter boundaries due to the Japanese kanji and kana writing system. We recruited 22 right-handed native speakers of Japanese (nine males, 35.5±7.3 yrs.). We used 448 Japanese verbs, as well as the same number of nonwords (total 896 stimuli). The participants performed a visual lexical decision task. We used a 157-channel MEG system (KIT, Japan) for recording, and MEG-Python and Eelbrain packages for the MEG analyses. As our primary target was the M170, the region of interest was anatomically defined as the L. FG/ITG and the analysis time window was restricted to 50-250 ms after word onset. We examined whether the M170 is modulated by morphTP or letterTP. We found a significant negative correlation of the morphTP (corrected p<0.03), whereas we did not find any significant correlation of the letterTP in this region. These results demonstrated that morphologically complex verbs in Japanese are indeed decomposed into morphemes, but not into letters, similar to morphologically complex words in English examined in the previous studies.. |
31. | Osada T, Ohta S, Ogawa A, Tanaka M, Suda A, Kamagata K, Hori M, Aoki S, Shimo Y, Hattori N, Shimizu T, Enomoto H, Hanajima R, Ugawa Y, Konishi S, Essentiality of the intraparietal sulcus for response inhibition revealed by fMRI and TMS, 第3回ヒト脳イメージング研究会, 2019.09. |
32. | Shinri Ohta, Yohei Oseki, Alec Marantz, Disentangling morphological processing and letter recognition: An MEG study of Japanese verbs, SNL 2019, 2019.08. |
33. | Ohta S, Functional neuroimaging as a tool for testing/generating linguistic hypotheses, The Japanese Society for Language Sciences 21st Annual International Conference (JSLS2019), 2019.07, [URL]. |
34. | 太田 真理, 大関 洋平, アレック・マランツ, Selective modulation of left inferior temporal activation by morphological decomposition: An MEG study of Japanese verbs, The 42nd Annual Meeting of the Japan Neuroscience Society (NEURO2019), 2019.07. |
35. | Takahiro Osada, Shinri Ohta, Akitoshi Ogawa, Masaki Tanaka, Akimitsu Suda, Koji Kamagata, Masaaki Hori, Shigeki Aoki, Yasushi Shimo, Nobutaka Hattori, Takahiro Shimizu, Hiroyuki Enomoto, Ritsuko Hanajima, Yoshikazu Ugawa, Seiki Konishi, Causal role of the posterior parietal cortex for response inhibition revealed by fMRI and TMS, The 42nd Annual Meeting of the Japan Neuroscience Society (NEURO2019), 2019.07. |
36. | Takahiro Osada, Shinri Ohta, Akitoshi Ogawa, Masaki Tanaka, Akimitsu Suda, Koji Kamagata, Masaaki Hori, Shigeki Aoki, Yasushi Shimo, Nobutaka Hattori, Takahiro Shimizu, Hiroyuki Enomoto, Ritsuko Hanajima, Yoshikazu Ugawa, Seiki Konishi, Necessity of the posterior parietal cortex in response inhibition revealed by fMRI and TMS, OHBM2019, 2019.06. |
37. | 太田 真理, 大関 洋平, アレック・マランツ, Morphological, but not orthographic, decomposition of morphologically complex verbs in Japanese: An MEG study, Psycholinguistics in Iceland – Parsing and Prediction, 2019.06. |
38. | Morphological decomposition selectively modulates activation in the left fusiform/inferior temporal gyri: An MEG study of Japanese verbs. |
39. | 太田 真理, 大関 洋平, アレック・マランツ, Morphological decomposition of morphologically complex verbs in Japanese: An MEG study, NEUROLANG-AD 2019, 2019.04. |
40. | The neural basis of Japanese verb processing: An MEG study. |
41. | ダニエル・ギャラガー, 矢野雅貴, 太田 真理, Syntactic and Orthographic/Phonological Violation Processing across Modalities in Native Spanish Speakers: An ERP Study, 第4回坂本勉記念神経科学研究会, 2019.02. |
42. | An acceptability judgement experiment on derivation of Japanese adjectives. |
43. | A theoretical/experimental consideration of Merge and non-Merge computations. |
44. | Neural basis of morphosyntactic processing in Japanese: An MEG study. |
45. | A theoretical/neuroscientific consideration of Merge and non-Merge computations. |
46. | Identification of the neural network that computes syntax of the human language. |
47. | Ohta S, Neuroscience as linguistics, linguistics as neuroscience, Japanese Association of Scholars in Science Meeting, New York, NY, USA, Dec. 2017.. |
48. | Activation changes selective to Merge, the fundamental computation of natural language. |
49. | 田中恭平, 太田真理, 酒井邦嘉, Activation changes of the left frontal regions modified by independent factors of construction and scrambling, Neuroscience2016, 2016.07. |
50. | fMRI and the neural basis of syntactic processing. |
51. | 太田 真理, 福井 直樹, 辻子 美保子, 成田 広樹, 酒井 邦嘉, Merge-generability as a crucial concept in syntax: An experimental study, First International Symposium on the Physics of Language, 2016.03. |
52. | 太田 真理, 小泉 政利, 酒井 邦嘉, Scrambling elicits larger activation than topicalization in the grammar centers: An fMRI study in Kaqchikel Maya, Experimental Approaches to Arabic and other understudied Languages, 2016.01. |
53. | 金野 竜太, 太田 真理, 村垣 善浩, 丸山 隆志, 笠井 英世, 内山 正信, 黒川 信二, 栄 良樹, 酒井 邦嘉, 神経膠腫患者における文法処理に関するネットワーク内の機能的結合性変化(Functional connectivity change within syntax-related networks in glioma patients), 臨床神経学, 2015.12. |
54. | 太田 真理, 小泉 政利, 酒井 邦嘉, Dissociating scrambling from topicalization for activations in the grammar centers: An fMRI study in Kaqchikel Maya, SNL2015, 2015.10. |
55. | 太田 真理, 小泉 政利, 酒井 邦嘉, The left inferior frontal gyrus activation selectively increased by the object shift in a sentence: An fMRI study in Kaqchikel Maya, Neuroscience2015, 2015.07. |
56. | Changes of functional connectivity in neural networks related to syntactic processing observed in glioma patients. |
57. | 金野 竜太, 太田 真理, 村垣 善浩, 丸山 隆志, 笠井 英世, 内山 正信, 黒川 信二, 栄 良樹, 酒井 邦嘉, Functional connectivity changes in syntax-related networks among patients with a glioma, OHBM2015, 2015.06. |
58. | 金野 竜太, 太田 真理, 村垣 善浩, 丸山 隆志, 笠井 英世, 内山 正信, 黒川 信二, 栄 良樹, 酒井 邦嘉, Functional connectivity change within syntax-related networks in glioma patients, 第56回日本神経学会学術大会, 2015.05. |
59. | Shintani T, Ohta S, & Sakai KL, Shinomoto S, Estimating effective connectivity between brain areas with DCM, JPS2015, Tokyo, Japan, Mar. 2015.. |
60. | Elucidation of the syntactic computation in the language areas based on linguistics and MRI. |
61. | Basics of DTI and its application to the neuroscience of language. |
62. | Basics of fMRI and DTI. |
63. | 新谷俊了, 太田真理, 酒井邦嘉, 篠本滋, Estimating effective connectivity between brain areas with DCM, Workshop on fluctuating activity in neural networks, 2015.02. |
64. | Effects of word orders in Kaqchikel Maya from the viewpoint of the brain activation. |
65. | 太田 真理, 小泉 政利, 酒井 邦嘉, The left frontal activation selectively modulated by syntactic processing: An fMRI study with a special VOS language, VMT2014, 2014.12. |
66. | 太田 真理, 小泉 政利, 酒井 邦嘉, An fMRI study in Kaqchikel Maya for the effect of scrambled sentences, Neuroscience2014, 2014.09. |
67. | 金野 竜太, 村垣 善浩, 丸山 隆志, 太田 真理, 酒井 邦嘉, Abnormal functional connectivity patterns in syntax-related networks caused by a glioma, Neuroscience2014, 2014.09. |
68. | Ohta S & Ohta S, Effects of first-element phonological features on rendaku: A study using the Rendaku Database, 6th Workshop on Corpus Linguistics of Japanese Language, Tokyo, Japan, Sept. 2014.. |
69. | 太田 真理, 小泉 政利, 酒井 邦嘉, Activation modulation in the left inferior frontal gyrus caused by scrambled word orders: An fMRI study in Kaqchikel Maya, SNL2014, 2014.08. |
70. | 太田 真理, 福井 直樹, 酒井 邦嘉, Computational principles of syntax in the regions specialized for language, CREST Workshop with Noam Chomsky, 2014.03. |
71. | Narita H, Zushi M, Fukui N, Ohta S, Iizawa M, Iijima K, Nakai T, Sakai KL, An on-going research: The linguistic/theoretical background, CREST Workshop with Noam Chomsky, 2014.03. |
72. | Ohta S, Iizawa M, Iijima K, Nakai T, Narita H, Zushi M, Fukui N, Sakai KL, An on-going research: The experimental design, CREST Workshop with Noam Chomsky, 2014.03. |
73. | 太田 真理, 太田 聡, Rendaku “enthusiasts” and rendaku “indifferents”: Classification of compound nouns based on the frequency of rendaku, 3rd ICPP, 2013.12. |
74. | 金野 竜太, 村垣 善浩, 丸山 隆志, 太田 真理, 酒井 邦嘉, Differential agrammatic comprehension due to white matter damage in the dorsal and ventral pathways, Neuro2013, 2013.06. |
75. | 太田 真理, 福井 直樹, 酒井 邦嘉, The importance of the top-down connection through the superior longitudinal and arcuate fasciculi for the computation of syntactic structures, Neuro2013, 2013.06. |
76. | 太田 真理, 福井 直樹, 酒井 邦嘉, The importance of the dorsal pathway for the computation of syntactic structures, Neuroscience2012, 2012.09. |
77. | 金野 竜太, 村垣 善浩, 丸山 隆志, 太田 真理, 酒井 邦嘉, Visualization of language-related networks by activations in patients with left frontal gliomas and by the diffusion-tensor imaging for normal controls, Neuroscience2012, 2012.09. |
78. | Elucidation of the neural networks of language using fMRI of tumor patients and DTI of healthy controls. |
79. | 金野竜太, 村垣善浩, 丸山隆志, 太田真理, 酒井邦嘉, Differential and global cortical reorganization induced by left frontal glioma: Visualization of three syntax-related networks, 第53回日本神経学会学術大会, 2012.05. |
80. | The neural networks of language faculty elucidated by the neural activation of patients with left frontal glioma. |
81. | lucidation of the neural networks controlling syntactic computation of language: Roles of the left inferior frontal and supramarginal gyri. |
82. | 酒井 邦嘉, 太田 真理, 福井 直樹, Recursive Computation in the Human Brain, ling50 reunion, 2011.12. |
83. | 太田 真理, 福井 直樹, 酒井 邦嘉, Specialization of the human language areas for the recursive computation of syntactic structures, NLC2011, 2011.11. |
84. | 太田 真理, 福井 直樹, 酒井 邦嘉, The selective modulation of the frontal activations by embedding depths in sentences: An fMRI study, Neuro2010, 2010.09. |
85. | 太田 真理, 福井 直樹, 酒井 邦嘉, Elucidation of the recursive computation in the language areas: Embedding depth as a computational principle, Neuroscience2011, 2011.09. |
86. | The role of the left caudate head on processing of nested structures: An fMRI study. |
87. | The activation in the language areas selective for recursive computations of syntactic structures. |


Unauthorized reprint of the contents of this database is prohibited.
