title: Listening to speech activates motor areas involved in speech production.
abstract: To examine the role of motor areas in speech perception, we carried out a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study in which subjects listened passively to monosyllables and produced the same speech sounds. Listening to speech activated bilaterally a superior portion of ventral premotor cortex that largely overlapped a speech production motor area centered just posteriorly on the border of Brodmann areas 4a and 6, which we distinguished from a more ventral speech production area centered in area 4p. Our findings support the view that the motor system is recruited in mapping acoustic inputs to a phonetic code.
authors.affiliation: Ahmanson-Lovelace Brain Mapping Center and Neuroscience Interdepartmental Program, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA. stephenw@ucla.edu
authors.forename: Stephen M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Wilson
authors.forename: Ayşe Pinar
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Saygin
authors.forename: Martin I
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Sereno
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Iacoboni
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D000328:Adult; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D010700:Phonetics; D013060:Speech / Q000502:physiology*; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*