Increases in language lateralization in normal children as observed using magnetoencephalography.
Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies investigating hemispheric dominance for language have shown that hemispheric specialization increases with age. We employed magnetoencephalography (MEG) to investigate these effects as a function of normal development. In sum, 22 healthy children aged 7-16 years were investigated using two language tasks: a verb-generation (VG) task and a vowel-identification (VI) task. Significant hemispheric differences were found for both tasks in cerebral language areas using oscillatory MEG spectral analyses, confirming the MEG's ability to detect hemispheric specialization for language in children. Additionally, a significant increase of this lateralization as a function of age was observed for both tasks. As performance in the VI task showed no correlation with age, this increase seems to be unrelated to performance. These results confirm an increase in hemispheric specialization as a function of normal brain maturation.
Ressel
Volker
V
Department of Pediatric Neurology and Developmental Medicine, Children's Hospital, University of Tübingen, Hoppe-Seyler-Str. 1, Tübingen 72076, Germany. Volker.Ressel@med.uni-tuebingen.de
Wilke
Marko
M
Lidzba
Karen
K
Lutzenberger
Werner
W
Krägeloh-Mann
Ingeborg
I
D000293:Adolescent; D000367:Age Factors; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology; D002648:Child; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007807:Language Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015225:Magnetoencephalography / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D011381:Programming Languages; D012660:Semantics; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology