Cortical language activation in aphasia: a functional MRI study.
BACKGROUND
Functional neuroimaging has been used in neurolinguistic research on normal subjects and on patients with brain damage. This study was designed to investigate the differences of the neural basis underlying language processing between normal subjects and aphasics.


METHODS
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to map the language network in 6 normal subjects and 3 patients with aphasia who were in the stage of recovery from acute stroke. The participants performed a word generation task during multi-slice functional scanning for the measurement of signal change associated with regional neural activity induced by the task.


RESULTS
In normal subjects, a distributed language network was activated. Activations were present in the frontal, temporal, parietal and occipital regions. In the patient group, however, no activation was detected in the left inferior frontal gyrus whether the patient had a lesion in the left frontal lobe or not. Two patients showed activations in some right hemisphere regions where no activation appeared in normal subjects.


CONCLUSIONS
fMRI with word generation task is feasible for evaluating language function in aphasic patients. Remote effect of focal lesion and functional redistribution or reorganisation can be found in aphasic patients.
Xu
Xiao-jun
XJ
Department of Radiology, First Affiliated Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310003, China.
Zhang
Min-ming
MM
Shang
De-sheng
DS
Wang
Qi-dong
QD
Luo
Ben-yan
BY
Weng
Xu-chu
XC
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001037:Aphasia / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged