Auditory cerebral activation patterns of Chinese English learners by fMRI / 重庆医科大学学报

ABSTRACT

Objective:To identify the cerebral activation patterns associated with the processes that occur during viewing Chinese and English words in native Chinese English learners.Methods:12 right-handed Chinese English hamers were divided into two groups equally,namely English majors and non-English majors,and took semantic judgement tasks of both English and Chinese words,for whom the fMRI images were coUected.Results:To various degrees,all subjects demonstrated activation of associated cerebral regions in both hemispheres and the left hemisphere activation was more significant for most subjects.Except for elassieal regions involved in language processing,such as Wemicke areas and Broca areas,there were other activated cerebral regions,including cerebellum,limbic system and basal ganglia nucleus,etc.To sum up,there were apparent overlap for cerebral activation distribution and no specific processing areas for both tasks.The analysis of ROI(region of interest)suggested that subjects in specialized group were more dependent on right hemisphere to perform English words task.Conclus/onLanguage cognition is dominated by left hemisphere,which is also shared by the right hemisphere to various degrees and thus two hemispheres work by ways of both dissociation and coordination.It is possible that working strategy of the right hemisphere in English task is related to proficiency of the second language.A variety of distinctions are shared by each subject for language cognitive patterns.