Spatiotemporal Patterns of Brain Activation During an Action Naming Task Using Magnetoencephalography

Summary: Eight right-handed subjects were asked to silently generate a verb to a visual stimulus while the magnetic flux normal to the scalp surface was recorded with a whole-head neuromagnetometer. The spatiotemporal patterns of activation in lateral occipital, inferior parietal, superior temporal, basal temporal, and inferior frontal cortices were estimated using minimum estimation, a distributed source analysis methodology. Although there was significant variability among subjects, averaged data indicated that latencies of peak activation in these regions of interest progressed from posterior to anterior. Peak latencies were earliest in lateral occipital cortex and latest in pars opercularis and pars triangularis in the inferior frontal gyrus. Lateralization of activation was strongest in pars opercularis, which is part of classical Broca’s area, with activation being stronger in this area within the left hemisphere in every subject. Results provide support for the use of magnetoencephalography in conjunction with MNE analysis for the purpose of lateralizing and localizing language-specific activation in frontal areas as well as the study of the spatiotemporal parameters of brain activation associated with cognitive function.

[1]  Karl J. Friston,et al.  Analysis of fMRI Time-Series Revisited—Again , 1995, NeuroImage.

[2]  Kensuke Kawai,et al.  EXPRESSIVE AND RECEPTIVE LANGUAGE AREAS DETERMINED BY A NON‐INVASIVE RELIABLE METHOD USING FUNCTIONAL MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING AND MAGNETOENCEPHALOGRAPHY , 2007, Neurosurgery.

[3]  E. Somersalo,et al.  Visualization of Magnetoencephalographic Data Using Minimum Current Estimates , 1999, NeuroImage.

[4]  P. Broca Remarques sur le siège de la faculté du langage articulé, suivies d'une observation d'aphémie (perte de la parole) , 1861 .

[5]  Simon B. Eickhoff,et al.  Analysis of neural mechanisms underlying verbal fluency in cytoarchitectonically defined stereotaxic space—The roles of Brodmann areas 44 and 45 , 2004, NeuroImage.

[6]  R. Ilmoniemi,et al.  Models of source currents in the brain , 2005, Brain Topography.

[7]  B Opitz,et al.  Distributed cortical networks for syntax processing: Broca’s area as the common denominator , 2003, Brain and Language.

[8]  A. Damasio,et al.  Neural Correlates of Naming Actions and of Naming Spatial Relations , 2001, NeuroImage.

[9]  Brian Everitt,et al.  A systematic review and quantitative appraisal of fMRI studies of verbal fluency: Role of the left inferior frontal gyrus , 2006, Human brain mapping.

[10]  C. Price,et al.  Three Distinct Ventral Occipitotemporal Regions for Reading and Object Naming , 1999, NeuroImage.

[11]  C. Segebarth,et al.  Hemispheric Language Dominance Testing by Means of fMRI , 1999, Journal of neuroimaging : official journal of the American Society of Neuroimaging.

[12]  R. Hari,et al.  Dynamics of brain activation during picture naming , 1994, Nature.

[13]  Stefano F. Cappa,et al.  Word and picture matching: a PET study of semantic category effects , 1999, Neuropsychologia.

[14]  Antje S. Meyer,et al.  An MEG Study of Picture Naming , 1998, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[15]  V. Schmithorst,et al.  Normal fMRI Brain Activation Patterns in Children Performing a Verb Generation Task , 2001, NeuroImage.

[16]  S. Bookheimer Functional MRI of language: new approaches to understanding the cortical organization of semantic processing. , 2002, Annual review of neuroscience.

[17]  P. Broca,et al.  Remarques sur le siege de la faculte du langage articule suivies d'une observation d'aphemie , 1861 .

[18]  J Vieth,et al.  New approach to localize speech relevant brain areas and hemispheric dominance using spatially filtered magnetoencephalography , 2001, Human brain mapping.

[19]  Pasquale A. Della Rosa,et al.  The impact of semantic reference on word class: An fMRI study of action and object naming , 2006, NeuroImage.

[20]  M. Buonocore,et al.  Intrasubject reproducibility of functional MR imaging activation in language tasks. , 2006, AJNR. American journal of neuroradiology.

[21]  Gary W. Thickbroom,et al.  Differential activation of frontal lobe areas by lexical and semantic language tasks: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study , 2006, Journal of Clinical Neuroscience.

[22]  L. Tyler,et al.  Unitary vs multiple semantics: PET studies of word and picture processing , 2004, Brain and Language.

[23]  Ferath Kherif,et al.  Temporal sorting of neural components underlying phonological processing. , 1999, Neuroreport.

[24]  D. LeBihan,et al.  Functional anatomy of cognitive development , 2000, Neurology.

[25]  Riitta Salmelin,et al.  Cortical dynamics of visual/semantic vs. phonological analysis in picture confrontation , 2006, NeuroImage.

[26]  R. Ilmoniemi,et al.  Interpreting magnetic fields of the brain: minimum norm estimates , 2006, Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing.

[27]  J. Sarvas Basic mathematical and electromagnetic concepts of the biomagnetic inverse problem. , 1987, Physics in medicine and biology.

[28]  R. C. Oldfield The assessment and analysis of handedness: the Edinburgh inventory. , 1971, Neuropsychologia.

[29]  Riitta Salmelin,et al.  Naming actions and objects: cortical dynamics in healthy adults and in an anomic patient with a dissociation in action/object naming , 2003, NeuroImage.

[30]  N. Tepley,et al.  MEG localization of language-specific cortex utilizing MR-FOCUSS , 2004, Neurology.

[31]  Anders M. Dale,et al.  Cortical Surface-Based Analysis I. Segmentation and Surface Reconstruction , 1999, NeuroImage.

[32]  A. Dale,et al.  Improved Localizadon of Cortical Activity by Combining EEG and MEG with MRI Cortical Surface Reconstruction: A Linear Approach , 1993, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.