Subdivision of frontal cortex mechanisms for language production in aphasia

NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA

卷:50

Article

Thothathiri, Malathi^1,2  Gagliardi, Maureen¹  Schwartz, Myrna F.¹ 

[1] Moss Rehabil Res Inst, Elkins Pk, PA USA

[2] Univ Penn, Philadelphia, PA 19104 USA

关键词: Language production;    Sequencing;    Cognitive control;    Prefrontal cortex;    Aphasia;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2012.09.021

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

Ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) has long been linked to language production, but the precise mechanisms are still being elucidated. Using neuropsychological case studies, we explored possible sub-specialization within this region for different linguistic and executive functions. Frontal patients with different lesion profiles completed two sequencing tasks, which were hypothesized to engage partially overlapping components. The multi-word priming task tested the sequencing of co-activated representations and the overriding of primed word orders. The sequence reproduction task tested the sequencing of co-activated representations, but did not employ a priming manipulation. We compared patients' performance on the two tasks to that of healthy, age-matched controls. Results are partially consistent with an anterior-posterior gradient of cognitive control within lateral prefrontal cortex (Koechlin & Summerfield, 2007). However, we also found a stimulus-specific pattern, which suggests that sub-specialization might be contingent on type of representation as well as type of control signal. Isolating such components functionally and anatomically might lead to a better understanding of language production deficits in aphasia. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

【 授权许可】

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