Neuroanatomical Analysis for Onomatopoeia and Phainomime Words: fMRI Study

The purpose of this study is to examine the Neuroanatomical areas related with onomatopoeia and phainomime word recognition. Using the block-designed fMRI, whole-brain images (N=11) were acquired during lexical decisions. We examined how the lexical information initiatesbrain activation during visual word recognition. The onomatopoeic word recognition activated the bilateral occipital lobes and superior mid-temporal-gyrus, whereas the phainomime words recognition activated left SMA and bilateral cerebellum as well as bilateral occipital lobes. Regions more activated for the phainomime word than onomatopoeia included left SMA and bilateral cerebellum. Regions more activated for the onomatopoeia than phainomime word included left superior and mid-temporal gyri. The word recognition for onomatopoeia plus phainomime word showed activation on bilateral middle and superior temporal gyrus, right supramarginal gyrus, left middle temporal gyrus, left middle occipital gyrus, and right occipital gyrus. This is the first fMRI research to analyze onomatopoeia and phainomime word.