Search results for "Broca's area"
showing 6 items of 6 documents
Encoding of human action in Broca's area.
2009
International audience; Broca's area has been considered, for over a century, as the brain centre responsible for speech production. Modern neuroimaging and neuropsychological evidence have suggested a wider functional role is played by this area. In addition to the evidence that it is involved in syntactical analysis, mathematical calculation and music processing, it has recently been shown that Broca's area may play some role in language comprehension and, more generally, in understanding actions of other individuals. As shown by functional magnetic resonance imaging, Broca's area is one of the cortical areas activated by hand/mouth action observation and it has been proposed that it may …
Language and motor control.
2000
We investigated the possible influence of automatic word reading on processes of visuo-motor transformation. Subjects reached and grasped an object on which the following Italian words were printed: 'VICINO' (near) or 'LONTAN' (far) on an object either near or far from the agent (experiments 1, 2); PICCOLO (small) or 'GRANDE' (large) on either a small or a large object (experiment 4); and 'ALTO' (high) or 'BASSO' (low) on either a high or a low object (experiment 5). The kinematics of the initial phase of reaching-grasping was affected by the meaning of the printed words. Namely, subjects automatically associated the meaning of the word with the corresponding property of the object and acti…
Word order and Broca’s region: Evidence for a supra-syntactic perspective
2008
It has often been suggested that the role of Broca's region in sentence comprehension can be explained with reference to general cognitive mechanisms (e.g. working memory, cognitive control). However, the (language-related) basis for such proposals is often restricted to findings on English. Here, we argue that an extension of the database to other languages can shed new light on the types of mechanisms that an adequate account of Broca's region should be equipped to deal with. This becomes most readily apparent in the domain of word order variations, which we examined in German verb-final sentences using event-related fMRI. Our results showed that activation in the pars opercularis--a core…
VBM-DTI correlates of verbal intelligence: a potential link to Broca's area.
2012
Abstract Human brain lesion studies first investigated the biological roots of cognitive functions including language in the late 1800s. Neuroimaging studies have reported correlation findings with general intelligence predominantly in fronto-parietal cortical areas. However, there is still little evidence about the relationship between verbal intelligence and structural properties of the brain. We predicted that verbal performance is related to language regions of Broca's and Wernicke's areas. Verbal intelligence quotient (vIQ) was assessed in 30 healthy young subjects. T1-weighted MRI and diffusion tensor imaging data sets were acquired. Voxel-wise regression analyses were used to correla…
Grasp with hand and mouth: a kinematic study on healthy subjects
2001
Neurons involved in grasp preparation with hand and mouth were previously recorded in the premotor cortex of monkey. The aim of the present kinematic study was to determine whether a unique planning underlies the act of grasping with hand and mouth in humans as well. In a set of four experiments, healthy subjects reached and grasped with the hand an object of different size while opening the mouth ( experiments 1 and 3), or extending the other forearm ( experiment 4), or the fingers of the other hand ( experiment 5). In a subsequent set of three experiments, subjects grasped an object of different size with the mouth, while opening the fingers of the right hand ( experiments 6–8). The init…
Developmental dyslexia: atypical cortical asymmetries and functional significance
2000
Using brain magnetic resonance imaging, we measured in 16 young developmental dyslexic adults and 14 age-matched controls cortical asymmetries of posterior language-related areas, including Planum temporale and parietal operculum cortical ribbon, and of the inferior frontal region related in the left hemisphere to speech processing. In addition, we assessed the sulcal morphology of the inferior frontal gyrus in both groups according to a qualitative method. The dyslexic subjects also performed specific tasks exploring different aspects of phonological and lexical-semantic processes. Results showed that: (1) contrary to most results reported in the literature, there is a lack of any morpholo…