We investigated the lesion characteristics driving inter- hemispheric reorganization of language comprehension and language production in 19 patients (7-32years eight females) with congenital left-hemispheric brain lesions (periventricular lesions and middle cerebral artery infarctions ) by fMRI. Language comprehension may be hemispherically dissociated from language production. Pre- or perinatally acquired ('congenital') left-hemispheric brain lesions can be compensated for by reorganizing language into homotopic brain regions in the right hemisphere. Lidzba, Karen de Haan, Bianca Wilke, Marko KrÃ¤geloh-Mann, Ingeborg Staudt, Martin Lesion characteristics driving right- hemispheric language reorganization in congenital left-hemispheric brain damage. This establishes the unique role of the left hemisphere in syntax, a core component in human language. However, these regions do not support the same linguistic functions as those in the left-hemisphere and only indirectly contribute to preserved syntactic capacity. Reduced neural integrity in the left-hemisphere through brain damage or healthy ageing results in increased right- hemisphere activation in homologous regions to those left-hemisphere regions typically involved in the young. Activity in the right- hemisphere was not correlated with damage in the left-hemisphere or with performance. However, voxel-based morphometry analyses showed that only tissue integrity in left Brodmann areas 45/47 was correlated with activity and performance poor tissue integrity in left Brodmann area 45 was associated with reduced functional activity and increased syntactic deficits. While healthy controls activated a left-hemisphere network of correlated activity including Brodmann areas 45/47 and posterior middle temporal gyrus during syntactic processing, patients activated Brodmann areas 45/47 bilaterally and right middle temporal gyrus. In a functional neuroimaging study participants heard spoken sentences that differentially loaded on syntactic and semantic information. To do this, we focus on syntax, a key linguistic function considered to be strongly left-lateralized, combining measures of tissue integrity, neural activation and behavioural performance. Here we examine the potential for plasticity by asking whether a strongly left-lateralized system can successfully reorganize to the right- hemisphere following left-hemisphere brain damage. The extent to which the human brain shows evidence of functional plasticity across the lifespan has been addressed in the context of pathological brain changes and, more recently, of the changes that take place during healthy ageing. Tyler, Lorraine K Wright, Paul Randall, Billi Marslen-Wilson, William D Stamatakis, Emmanuel A Reorganization of syntactic processing following left-hemisphere brain damage: does right- hemisphere activity preserve function?

Julian casey oddmar