Functional Roles of Broca's Area and SMG: Evidence from Cortical Stimulation Mapping in a Deaf Signer

The importance of the left hemisphere in language function has been firmly established and current work strives to understand regional specializations within the perisylvian language areas. This paper reports a case study of a deaf user of American Sign Language undergoing an awake cortical stimulation mapping procedure. Patterns of sign errors accompanying electrical stimulation of Broca's area and the supramarginal gyrus (SMG) are reported. Our findings show Broca's area to be involved in the motor execution of sign language. These data demonstrate that the linguistic specificity of Broca's area is not limited to speech behavior. In addition, unusual semantic-phonological errors were observed with stimulation to the SMG; these data may implicate the SMG in the binding of linguistic features in the service of language production. Taken together, these findings provide important insight into the linguistic specificity of Broca's area and the functional role of the supramarginal gyrus in language processing.

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