An fMRI study on conceptual, grammatical, and morpho-phonological processing

The aim of the present study was to determine whether processing of syntactic word information (lemma) is subserved by the same neural substrate as processing of conceptual or word form information (lexeme). We measured BOLD responses in 14 native speakers of German in three different decision tasks, each focussing specifically on one level of lexical processing (conceptual, syntactic, and morpho-phonological). The test parameters were natural gender, grammatical gender, and word form derivation, respectively. Discrimination between words played backwards and complex sounds served as control task. Complex contrasts revealed a functional fractionation of the left inferior frontal gyrus for each level of lexical processing.

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

[2]  Alfonso Caramazza,et al.  On Knowing the Auxiliary of a Verb That Cannot Be Named: Evidence for the Independence of Grammatical and Phonological Aspects of Lexical Knowledge , 1997, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[3]  D Y von Cramon,et al.  Segregating semantic and syntactic aspects of processing in the human brain: an fMRI investigation of different word types. , 2000, Cerebral cortex.

[4]  Anne Cutler,et al.  A theory of lexical access in speech production , 1999, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[5]  Klaus Willmes,et al.  Hemispheric lateralization at different levels of human auditory word processing: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study , 2000, Neuroscience Letters.

[6]  Klaus Willmes,et al.  Processing of Homonyms: A Functional MRI Study on the Separation of Word Forms from Concepts , 2001, Cortex.

[7]  R. H. Baayen,et al.  The CELEX Lexical Database (CD-ROM) , 1996 .

[8]  M. Torrens.  Co-Planar Stereotaxic Atlas of the Human Brain—3-Dimensional Proportional System: An Approach to Cerebral Imaging, J. Talairach, P. Tournoux. Georg Thieme Verlag, New York (1988), 122 pp., 130 figs. DM 268 , 1990 .

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

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