Involvement of the cerebellum in semantic discrimination: an fMRI study.
We investigated, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), whether semantic discrimination, an inner linguistic task without overt articulation, can elicit activation in the cerebellum. Six subjects performed three semantic tasks with different loads of discrimination while being scanned. All three semantic tasks activated distributed brain areas, including the right posterior inferior cerebellum. Much stronger activation was found in the cerebellum in more difficult tasks, in terms of the activation volume and signal intensity. These results suggest that the cerebellum activation is involved in semantic discrimination and is modulated by discrimination difficulty.
Xiang
Huadong
H
Laboratory for Higher Brain Function, Institute of Psychology, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
Lin
Chongyu
C
Ma
Xiaohai
X
Zhang
Zhaoqi
Z
Bower
James M
JM
Weng
Xuchu
X
Gao
Jia-Hong
JH
D000328:Adult; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002531:Cerebellum / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D012660:Semantics; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*