title: Role of the corpus callosum in speech comprehension: interfacing syntax and prosody.
abstract: The role of the corpus callosum (CC) in the interhemispheric interaction of prosodic and syntactic information during speech comprehension was investigated in patients with lesions in the CC, and in healthy controls. The event-related brain potential experiment examined the effect of prosodic phrase structure on the processing of a verb whose argument structure matched or did not match the prior prosody-induced syntactic structure. While controls showed an N400-like effect for prosodically mismatching verb argument structures, thus indicating a stable interplay between prosody and syntax, patients with lesions in the posterior third of the CC did not show this effect. Because these patients displayed a prosody-independent semantic N400 effect, the present data indicate that the posterior third of the CC is the crucial neuroanatomical structure for the interhemispheric interplay of suprasegmental prosodic information and syntactic information.
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, 04103 Leipzig, Germany. angelafr@cbs.mpg.de
authors.forename: Angela D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Friederici
authors.forename: D Yves
authors.initials: DY
authors.lastname: von Cramon
authors.forename: Sonja A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Kotz
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001041:Aphasia, Wernicke / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001925:Brain Damage, Chronic / Q000150:complications / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D003337:Corpus Callosum / Q000473:pathology / Q000502:physiology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000473:pathology / Q000502:physiology / Q000503:physiopathology; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology*