Handedness and functional MRI-activation patterns in sentence processing.
We investigate differences of cerebral activation in 12 right-handed and left-handed participants, respectively, using a sentence-processing task. Functional MRI shows activation of left-frontal and inferior-parietal speech areas (BA 44, BA9, BA 40) in both groups, but a stronger bilateral activation in left-handers. Direct group comparison reveals a stronger activation in right-frontal cortex (BA 47, BA 6) and left cerebellum in left-handers. Laterality indices for the inferior-frontal cortex are less asymmetric in left-handers and are not related to the degree of handedness. Thus, our results show that sentence-processing induced enhanced activation involving a bilateral network in left-handed participants.
Jörgens
Silke
S
Department of Neurology, Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf, Germany. joergesi@uni-duesseldorf.de
Kleiser
Raimund
R
Indefrey
Peter
P
Seitz
Rüdiger J
RJ
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply* / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods; D007802:Language; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood
D010100:Oxygen