Functional imaging of Broca's area in native Persian speakers: an fMRI study

ABSTRACT

The problem of localization of speech associated cortices using noninvasive methods has been of utmost importance in many neuroimaging studies, but the results are difficult to resolve for specific neurosurgical applications. In this study, we used fMRI to delineate language-related brain activation patterns with emphasis on the Broca's area during the execution of two Persian language tasks. The subjects comprised of nine healthy right-handed men who participated voluntarily in this study. They performed two consequent fMRI paradigms namely; "Word Production" and "Reverse Word Reading". The fMRI data were collected and analyzed. Then, functional images were registered to anatomical images using FSL software. The laterality indices were also calculated in regions of interest with different threshold levels. The results indicate that Broca's area, as the classical language-production center, was robustly activated while performing these two tasks. In eight out of nine subjects, the left hemisphere dominancy and Broca's area activation were observed and in one case activation was prominent in the homologous area in the right hemisphere. Similar pattern of cortical activation during Persian word production and Anglophone languages such as English was revealed. fMRI is a valuable means for brain mapping in language studies