Processing Linguistic Complexity and Grammaticality in the Left Frontal Cortex

We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to directly compare the hemodynamic responses associated with varying degrees of linguistic complexity with those engendered by the processing of ungrammatical utterances. We demonstrate a dissociation within the left inferior frontal corte...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. 1991) N.Y. 1991), 2006-12, Vol.16 (12), p.1709-1717
Main Authors: Friederici, Angela D., Fiebach, Christian J., Schlesewsky, Matthias, Bornkessel, Ina D., von Cramon, D. Yves
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Behavior - physiology
Brain Mapping
Broca's area
fMRI
Frontal Lobe - anatomy & histology
Frontal Lobe - physiology
Humans
Language
left frontal operculum
linguistic complexity
Linguistics
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
pars opercularis
Semantics
Speech Perception - physiology
syntax
ungrammaticality
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Summary:We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to directly compare the hemodynamic responses associated with varying degrees of linguistic complexity with those engendered by the processing of ungrammatical utterances. We demonstrate a dissociation within the left inferior frontal cortex between the deep frontal operculum, which responds to syntactic violations, and a core region of Broca's area, that is, the inferior portion of the left pars opercularis in Brodmann area 44, the activation of which is modulated as a function of the complexity of well-formed sentences. The data demonstrate that different brain regions in the prefrontal cortex support distinct mechanisms in the mapping from a linguistic form onto meaning, thereby separating ungrammaticality from linguistic complexity.
ISSN:1047-3211
1460-2199
DOI:10.1093/cercor/bhj106