Converging language streams in the human temporal lobe.
There is general agreement that, after initial processing in unimodal sensory cortex, the processing pathways for spoken and written language converge to access verbal meaning. However, the existing literature provides conflicting accounts of the cortical location of this convergence. Most aphasic stroke studies localize verbal comprehension to posterior temporal and inferior parietal cortex (Wernicke's area), whereas evidence from focal cortical neurodegenerative syndromes instead implicates anterior temporal cortex. Previous functional imaging studies in normal subjects have failed to reconcile these opposing positions. Using a functional imaging paradigm in normal subjects that used spoken and written narratives and multiple baselines, we demonstrated common activation during implicit comprehension of spoken and written language in inferior and lateral regions of the left anterior temporal cortex and at the junction of temporal, occipital, and parietal cortex. These results indicate that verbal comprehension uses unimodal processing streams that converge in both anterior and posterior heteromodal cortical regions in the left temporal lobe.
Spitsyna
Galina
G
University Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Royal Free and University College Medical School, London NW3 2PF, United Kingdom.
Warren
Jane E
JE
Scott
Sophie K
SK
Turkheimer
Federico E
FE
Wise
Richard J S
RJ
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001306:Auditory Pathways; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D033262:Narration; D009778:Occipital Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics; D013067:Speech Perception; D013382:Subtraction Technique; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000502:physiology*; D014055:Tomography, Emission-Computed; D014795:Visual Pathways