Where the brain appreciates the final state of an event: The neural correlates of telicity

In the present study, we investigated whether the human brain distinguishes between telic events, that necessarily entail a specified endpoint (e.g., reaching), and atelic events with no delimitation or final state (e.g., chasing). We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to explore the patterns of neural response associated with verbs denoting telic and atelic events, and found that the left posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG), an area systematically engaged by verb processing tasks, showed a significantly higher activation for telic as compared to atelic verbs. These results provide the first evidence that the human brain appreciates whether events lead to an end or a change of state. This information is critical for survival, and therefore may have played a role in the evolution of the human brain and cognitive system. In addition, the findings of this study provide an explanation for the long-debated question of which verb properties modulate neural activity in the left posterior middle temporal gyrus, as they indicate that, after any other semantic properties have been controlled for, verb processing and event knowledge in the left pMTG are specifically related to the representation of telicity.