title: Language-invariant verb processing regions in Spanish-English bilinguals.
abstract: Nouns and verbs are fundamental grammatical building blocks of all languages. Studies of brain-damaged patients and healthy individuals have demonstrated that verb processing can be dissociated from noun processing at a neuroanatomical level. In cases where bilingual patients have a noun or verb deficit, the deficit has been observed in both languages. This suggests that the noun-verb distinction may be based on neural components that are common across languages. Here we investigated the cortical organization of grammatical categories in healthy, early Spanish-English bilinguals using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in a morphophonological alternation task. Four regions showed greater activity for verbs than for nouns in both languages: left posterior middle temporal gyrus (LMTG), left middle frontal gyrus (LMFG), pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA), and right middle occipital gyrus (RMOG); no regions showed greater activation for nouns. Multi-voxel pattern analysis within verb-specific regions showed indistinguishable activity patterns for English and Spanish, indicating language-invariant bilingual processing. In LMTG and LMFG, patterns were more similar within than across grammatical category, both within and across languages, indicating language-invariant grammatical class information. These results suggest that the neural substrates underlying verb-specific processing are largely independent of language in bilinguals, both at the macroscopic neuroanatomical level and at the level of voxel activity patterns.
authors.affiliation: Harvard University, USA; Massachusetts General Hospital, USA.
authors.forename: Joanna L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Willms
authors.affiliation: Harvard University, USA; Massachusetts General Hospital, USA; Children's Hospital Boston, USA; Harvard Medical School, USA.
authors.forename: Kevin A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Shapiro
authors.affiliation: Harvard University, USA; Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, Italy.
authors.forename: Marius V
authors.initials: MV
authors.lastname: Peelen
authors.affiliation: Harvard University, USA; Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, Italy.
authors.forename: Petra E
authors.initials: PE
authors.lastname: Pajtas
authors.affiliation: Pompeu Fabra University and ICREA, Spain.
authors.forename: Albert
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Costa
authors.affiliation: Massachusetts General Hospital, USA; Harvard Medical School, USA.
authors.forename: Lauren R
authors.initials: LR
authors.lastname: Moo
authors.affiliation: Harvard University, USA; Center for Mind/Brain Sciences (CIMeC), University of Trento, Italy. Electronic address: caram@wjh.harvard.edu.
authors.forename: Alfonso
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Caramazza
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted; D007802:Language; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D019303:Multilingualism; D012660:Semantics; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult