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Numbers within Our Hands: Modulation of Corticospinal Excitability of Hand Muscles during Numerical Judgment

Università degli studi di Parma, Italy

Reprint requests should be sent to Marc Sato, School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Center for Research on Language, Mind, and Brain, 3640 rue de la Montague, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3G 2 A8, or via e-mail: marc.sato{at}mail.mcgill.ca.

Developmental and cross-cultural studies show that finger counting represents one of the basic number learning strategies. However, despite the ubiquity of such an embodied strategy, the issue of whether there is a neural link between numbers and fingers in adult, literate individuals remains debated. Here, we used transcranial magnetic stimulation to study changes of excitability of hand muscles of individuals performing a visual parity judgment task, a task not requiring counting, on Arabic numerals from 1 to 9. Although no modulation was observed for the left hand muscles, an increase in amplitude of motor-evoked potentials was found for the right hand muscles. This increase was specific for smaller numbers (1 to 4) as compared to larger numbers (6 to 9). These findings indicate a close relationship between hand/finger and numerical representations.

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