The Role of Ascending Ventral-Tegmental Fibers for Recovery after Stroke.

OBJECTIVES: The integrity of cortical motor networks and their descending effector pathway (the corticospinal tract [CST]) is a major determinant motor recovery after stroke. However, this view neglects the importance of ascending tracts and their modulatory effects on cortical physiology. Here, we explore the role of such a tract that connects dopaminergic ventral tegmental midbrain nuclei to the motor cortex (the VTMC tract) for post-stroke recovery. METHODS: Lesion data and diffusivity parameters (fractional anisotropy) of the ipsi- and contralesional VTMC tract and CST were obtained from 133 patients (63.9 ± 13.4 years, 45 women) during the acute and chronic stage after the first ever ischemic stroke in the middle cerebral artery territory. Degeneration of VTMC tract and CST was quantified and related to clinical outcome parameters (National Institute of Health Stroke Scale with motor and cortical symptom subscores; modified Fugl-Meyer upper extremity score; modified Ranking Scale [mRS]). RESULTS: A significant post-stroke degeneration occurred in both tracts, but only VTMC degeneration was associated with lesion size. Using multiple regression models, we dissected the impact of particular tracts on recovery: Changes in VTMC tract integrity were stronger associated with independence in daily activities (mRS), upper limb motor impairment (modified Fugl-Meyer upper extremity score) and cortical symptoms (aphasia, neglect) captured by National Institute of Health Stroke Scale compared to CST. Changes in CST integrity merely were associated with the degree of hemiparesis (National Institute of Health Stroke Scale motor subscale). INTERPRETATION: Post-stroke outcome is influenced by ascending (VTMC) and descending (CST) fiber tracts. Favorable outcome regarding independence (modified Ranking Scale), upper limb motor function (modified Fugl-Meyer upper extremity score), and cortical symptoms (aphasia, neglect) was more strongly related to the ascending than descending tract. ANN NEUROL 2023;93:922-933.

Syntax Acquisition in Healthy Adults and Post-Stroke Individuals: The Intriguing Role of Grammatical Preference, Statistical Learning, and Education.

Previous work has provided contrasting evidence on syntax acquisition. Syntax-internal factors, i.e., instinctive knowledge of the universals of grammar (UG) for finite-state grammar (FSG) and phrase-structure grammar (PSG) but also syntax-external factors such as language competence, working memory (WM) and demographic factors may affect syntax acquisition. This study employed an artificial grammar paradigm to identify which factors predicted syntax acquisition. Thirty-seven healthy individuals and forty-nine left-hemispheric stroke patients (fourteen with aphasia) read syllable sequences adhering to or violating FSG and PSG. They performed preference classifications followed by grammatical classifications (after training). Results showed the best classification accuracy for sequences adhering to UG, with performance predicted by syntactic competence and spatial WM. Classification of ungrammatical sequences improved after training and was predicted by verbal WM. Although accuracy on FSG was better than on PSG, generalization was fully possible only for PSG. Education was the best predictor of syntax acquisition, while aphasia and lesion volume were not predictors. This study shows a clear preference for UG, which is influenced by spatial and linguistic knowledge, but not by the presence of aphasia. Verbal WM supported the identification of rule violations. Moreover, the acquisition of FSG and PSG was related to partially different mechanisms, but both depended on education.

Speech apraxia and oral apraxia: association or dissociation? A multivariate lesion-symptom mapping study in acute stroke patients.

The anatomical relationship between speech apraxia (SA) and oral apraxia (OA) is still unclear. To shed light on this matter we studied 137 patients with acute ischaemic left-hemisphere stroke and performed support vector regression-based, multivariate lesion-symptom mapping. Thirty-three patients presented with either SA or OA. These two symptoms mostly co-occurred (n = 28), except for few patients with isolated SA (n = 2) or OA (n = 3). All patient with either SA or OA presented with aphasia (p < 0.001) and these symptoms were highly associated with apraxia (p < 0.001). Co-occurring SA and OA were predominantly associated with insular lesions, while the insula was completely spared in the five patients with isolated SA or OA. Isolated SA occurred in case of frontal lesions (prefrontal gyrus and superior longitudinal fasciculus), while isolated OA occurred in case of either temporoparietal or striatocapsular lesions. Our study supports the notion of a predominant, but not exclusive, role of the insula in verbal and non-verbal oral praxis, and indicates that frontal regions may contribute exclusively to verbal oral praxis, while temporoparietal and striatocapsular regions contribute to non-verbal oral praxis. However, since tests for SA and OA so far intrinsically also investigate aphasia and apraxia, refined tests are warranted.

The extreme capsule and aphasia: proof-of-concept of a new way relating structure to neurological symptoms.

We present anatomy-based symptom-lesion mapping to assess the association between lesions of tracts in the extreme capsule and aphasia. The study cohort consisted of 123 patients with acute left-hemispheric stroke without a lesion of language-related cortical areas of the Stanford atlas of functional regions of interest. On templates generated through global fibre tractography, lesions of the extreme capsule and of the arcuate fascicle were quantified and correlated with the occurrence of aphasia (n = 18) as defined by the Token Test. More than 15% damage of the slice plane through the extreme capsule was a strong independent predictor of aphasia in stroke patients, odds ratio 16.37, 95% confidence interval: 3.11-86.16, P < 0.01. In contrast, stroke lesions of >15% in the arcuate fascicle were not associated with aphasia. Our results support the relevance of a ventral pathway in the language network running through the extreme capsule.

German Language Adaptation of the NAVS (NAVS-G) and of the NAT (NAT-G): Testing Grammar in Aphasia.

Grammar provides the framework for understanding and producing language. In aphasia, an acquired language disorder, grammatical deficits are diversified and widespread. However, the few assessments for testing grammar in the German language do not consider current linguistic, psycholinguistic, and functional imaging data, which have been shown to be crucial for effective treatment. This study developed German language versions of the Northwestern Assessment of Verbs and Sentences (NAVS-G) and the Northwestern Anagram Test (NAT-G) to examine comprehension and production of verbs, controlling for the number and optionality of verb arguments, and sentences with increasing syntactic complexity. The NAVS-G and NAT-G were tested in 27 healthy participants, 15 right hemispheric stroke patients without aphasia, and 15 stroke patients with mild to residual aphasia. Participants without aphasia showed near-perfect performance, with the exception of (object) relative sentences, where accuracy was associated with educational level. In each patient with aphasia, deficits in more than one subtest were observed. The within and between population-groups logistic mixed regression analyses identified significant impairments in processing syntactic complexity at the verb and sentence levels. These findings indicate that the NAVS-G and NAT-G have potential for testing grammatical competence in (German) stroke patients.

Dissociation of visual extinction and neglect in the left hemisphere.

Visual neglect and extinction are two distinct visuospatial attention deficits that frequently occur after right hemisphere cerebral stroke. However, their different lesion profiles remain a matter of debate. In the left hemisphere, a domain-general dual-loop model with distinct computational abilities onto which several cognitive functions may project, has been proposed: a dorsal stream for sensori-motor mapping in time and space and a ventral stream for comprehension and representation of concepts. We wondered whether such a distinction may apply to visual extinction and neglect in left hemisphere lesions. Of 165 prospectively studied patients with acute left hemispheric ischemic stroke with a single lesion on MRI, 122 had no visuospatial attention deficit, 10 had extinction, 31 neglect and 2 had both, visual extinction and neglect. Voxel-based-lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM, FDR<.05) showed a clear anatomical dissociation. Extinction occurred after damage to the parietal cortex (anterior bank of the intraparietal sulcus, inferior parietal lobe, and supramarginal gyrus), while visual neglect occurred after damage mainly to the temporal lobe (superior and middle temporal lobe, anterior temporal pole), inferior ventral premotor cortex, frontal operculum, angular gyrus, and insula. Direct comparison of both conditions linked extinction to intraparietal sulcus and supramarginal gyrus (FDR<.05). Thus, in the left hemisphere extinction seems to be related to dorsal stream lesions, whereas neglect maps more on the ventral stream. These data cannot be generalized to the right hemisphere. However, a domain-general point-of-view may stimulate discussion on visuospatial attention processing also in the right hemisphere.

Dynamics of language reorganization after left temporo-parietal and frontal stroke.

The loss and recovery of language functions are still incompletely understood. This longitudinal functional MRI study investigated the neural mechanisms underlying language recovery in patients with post-stroke aphasia putting particular emphasis on the impact of lesion site. To identify patterns of language-related activation, an auditory functional MRI sentence comprehension paradigm was administered to patients with circumscribed lesions of either left frontal (n = 17) or temporo-parietal (n = 17) cortex. Patients were examined repeatedly during the acute (≤1 week, t1), subacute (1-2 weeks, t2) and chronic phase (>6 months, t3) post-stroke; healthy age-matched control subjects (n = 17) were tested once. The separation into two patient groups with circumscribed lesions allowed for a direct comparison of the contributions of distinct lesion-dependent network components to language reorganization between both groups. We hypothesized that activation of left hemisphere spared and perilesional cortex as well as lesion-homologue cortex in the right hemisphere varies between patient groups and across time. In addition, we expected that domain-general networks serving cognitive control independently contribute to language recovery. First, we found a global network disturbance in the acute phase that is characterized by reduced functional MRI language activation including areas distant to the lesion (i.e. diaschisis) and subsequent subacute network reactivation (i.e. resolution of diaschisis). These phenomena were driven by temporo-parietal lesions. Second, we identified a lesion-independent sequential activation pattern with increased activity of perilesional cortex and bilateral domain-general networks in the subacute phase followed by reorganization of left temporal language areas in the chronic phase. Third, we observed involvement of lesion-homologue cortex only in patients with frontal but not temporo-parietal lesions. Fourth, irrespective of lesion location, language reorganization predominantly occurred in pre-existing networks showing comparable activation in healthy controls. Finally, we detected different relationships of performance and activation in language and domain-general networks demonstrating the functional relevance for language recovery. Our findings highlight that the dynamics of language reorganization clearly depend on lesion location and hence open new perspectives for neurobiologically motivated strategies of language rehabilitation, such as individually-tailored targeted application of neuro-stimulation.

Dissociating frontal and temporal correlates of phonological and semantic fluency in a large sample of left hemisphere stroke patients.

Previous lesion studies suggest that semantic and phonological fluency are differentially subserved by distinct brain regions in the left temporal and the left frontal cortex, respectively. However, as of yet, this often implied double dissociation has not been explicitly investigated due to mainly two reasons: (i) the lack of sufficiently large samples of brain-lesioned patients that underwent assessment of the two fluency variants and (ii) the lack of tools to assess interactions in factorial analyses of non-normally distributed behavioral data. In addition, previous studies did not control for task resource artifacts potentially introduced by the generally higher task difficulty of phonological compared to semantic fluency. We addressed these issues by task-difficulty adjusted assessment of semantic and phonological fluency in 85 chronic patients with ischemic stroke of the left middle cerebral artery. For classical region-based lesion-behavior mapping patients were grouped with respect to their primary lesion location. Building on the extension of the non-parametric Brunner-Munzel rank-order test to multi-factorial designs, ANOVA-type analyses revealed a significant two-way interaction for cue type (semantic vs. phonological) by lesion location (left temporal vs. left frontal vs. other as stroke control group). Subsequent contrast analyses further confirmed the proposed double dissociation by demonstrating that (i) compared to stroke controls, left temporal lesions led to significant impairments in semantic but not in phonological fluency, whereas left frontal lesions led to significant impairments in phonological but not in semantic fluency, and that (ii) patients with frontal lesions showed significantly poorer performance in phonological than in semantic fluency, whereas patients with temporal lesions showed significantly poorer performance in semantic than in phonological fluency. The anatomical specificity of these findings was further assessed in voxel-based lesion-behavior mapping analyses using the multi-factorial extension of the Brunner-Munzel test. Voxel-wise ANOVA-type analyses identified circumscribed parts of left inferior frontal gyrus and left superior and middle temporal gyrus that significantly double-dissociated with respect to their differential contribution to phonological and semantic fluency, respectively. Furthermore, a main effect of lesion with significant impairments in both fluency types was found in left inferior frontal regions adjacent to but not overlapping with those showing the differential effect for phonological fluency. The present study hence not only provides first explicit evidence for the anatomical double dissociation in verbal fluency at the group level but also clearly underlines that its formulation constitutes an oversimplification as parts of left frontal cortex appear to contribute to both semantic and phonological fluency.

Distinct Contributions of Dorsal and Ventral Streams to Imitation of Tool-Use and Communicative Gestures.

Imitation of tool-use gestures (transitive; e.g., hammering) and communicative emblems (intransitive; e.g., waving goodbye) is frequently impaired after left-hemispheric lesions. We aimed 1) to identify lesions related to deficient transitive or intransitive gestures, 2) to delineate regions associated with distinct error types (e.g., hand configuration, kinematics), and 3) to compare imitation to previous data on pantomimed and actual tool use. Of note, 156 patients (64.3 ± 14.6 years; 56 female) with first-ever left-hemispheric ischemic stroke were prospectively examined 4.8 ± 2.0 days after symptom onset. Lesions were delineated on magnetic resonance imaging scans for voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping. First, while inferior-parietal lesions affected both gesture types, specific associations emerged between intransitive gesture deficits and anterior temporal damage and between transitive gesture deficits and premotor and occipito-parietal lesions. Second, impaired hand configurations were related to anterior intraparietal damage, hand/wrist-orientation errors to premotor lesions, and kinematic errors to inferior-parietal/occipito-temporal lesions. Third, premotor lesions impacted more on transitive imitation compared with actual tool use, pantomimed and actual tool use were more susceptible to lesioned insular cortex and subjacent white matter. In summary, transitive and intransitive gestures differentially rely on ventro-dorsal and ventral streams due to higher demands on temporo-spatial processing (transitive) or stronger reliance on semantic information (intransitive), respectively.

Componential Network for the Recognition of Tool-Associated Actions: Evidence from Voxel-based Lesion-Symptom Mapping in Acute Stroke Patients.

The study aimed to elucidate areas involved in recognizing tool-associated actions, and to characterize the relationship between recognition and active performance of tool use.We performed voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping in a prospective cohort of 98 acute left-hemisphere ischemic stroke patients (68 male, age mean ± standard deviation, 65 ± 13 years; examination 4.4 ± 2 days post-stroke). In a video-based test, patients distinguished correct tool-related actions from actions with spatio-temporal (incorrect grip, kinematics, or tool orientation) or conceptual errors (incorrect tool-recipient matching, e.g., spreading jam on toast with a paintbrush). Moreover, spatio-temporal and conceptual errors were determined during actual tool use.Deficient spatio-temporal error discrimination followed lesions within a dorsal network in which the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) and the lateral temporal cortex (sLTC) were specifically relevant for assessing functional hand postures and kinematics, respectively. Conversely, impaired recognition of conceptual errors resulted from damage to ventral stream regions including anterior temporal lobe. Furthermore, LTC and IPL lesions impacted differently on action recognition and active tool use, respectively.In summary, recognition of tool-associated actions relies on a componential network. Our study particularly highlights the dissociable roles of LTC and IPL for the recognition of action kinematics and functional hand postures, respectively.

Differential Roles of Ventral and Dorsal Streams for Conceptual and Production-Related Components of Tool Use in Acute Stroke Patients.

Impaired tool use despite preserved basic motor functions occurs after stroke in the context of apraxia, a cognitive motor disorder. To elucidate the neuroanatomical underpinnings of different tool use deficits, prospective behavioral assessments of 136 acute left-hemisphere stroke patients were combined with lesion delineation on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images for voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping. Deficits affecting both the selection of the appropriate recipient for a given tool (ToolSelect, e.g., choosing the nail for the hammer), and the performance of the typical tool-associated action (ToolUse, e.g., hammering in the nail) were associated with ventro-dorsal stream lesions, particularly within inferior parietal lobule. However, ToolSelect compared with ToolUse deficits were specifically related to damage within ventral stream regions including anterior temporal lobe. Additional retrospective error dichotomization based on the videotaped performances of ToolUse revealed that spatio-temporal errors (movement errors) were mainly caused by inferior parietal damage adjacent to the intraparietal sulcus while content errors, that is, perplexity, unrecognizable, or semantically incorrect movements, resulted from lesions within supramarginal gyrus and superior temporal lobe. In summary, our results suggest that in the use of tools, conceptual and production-related aspects can be differentiated and are implemented in anatomically distinct streams.

Neural bases of imitation and pantomime in acute stroke patients: distinct streams for praxis.

Apraxia is a cognitive disorder of skilled movements that characteristically affects the ability to imitate meaningless gestures, or to pantomime the use of tools. Despite substantial research, the neural underpinnings of imitation and pantomime have remained debated. An influential model states that higher motor functions are supported by different processing streams. A dorso-dorsal stream may mediate movements based on physical object properties, like reaching or grasping, whereas skilled tool use or pantomime rely on action representations stored within a ventro-dorsal stream. However, given variable results of past studies, the role of the two streams for imitation of meaningless gestures has remained uncertain, and the importance of the ventro-dorsal stream for pantomime of tool use has been questioned. To clarify the involvement of ventral and dorsal streams in imitation and pantomime, we performed voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping in a sample of 96 consecutive left-hemisphere stroke patients (mean age ± SD, 63.4 ± 14.8 years, 56 male). Patients were examined in the acute phase after ischaemic stroke (after a mean of 5.3, maximum 10 days) to avoid interference of brain reorganization with a reliable lesion-symptom mapping as best as possible. Patients were asked to imitate 20 meaningless hand and finger postures, and to pantomime the use of 14 common tools depicted as line drawings. Following the distinction between movement engrams and action semantics, pantomime errors were characterized as either movement or content errors, respectively. Whereas movement errors referred to incorrect spatio-temporal features of overall recognizable movements, content errors reflected an inability to associate tools with their prototypical actions. Both imitation and pantomime deficits were associated with lesions within the lateral occipitotemporal cortex, posterior inferior parietal lobule, posterior intraparietal sulcus and superior parietal lobule. However, the areas specifically related to the dorso-dorsal stream, i.e. posterior intraparietal sulcus and superior parietal lobule, were more strongly associated with imitation. Conversely, in contrast to imitation, pantomime deficits were associated with ventro-dorsal regions such as the supramarginal gyrus, as well as brain structures counted to the ventral stream, such as the extreme capsule. Ventral stream involvement was especially clear for content errors which were related to anterior temporal damage. However, movement errors were not consistently associated with a specific lesion location. In summary, our results indicate that imitation mainly relies on the dorso-dorsal stream for visuo-motor conversion and on-line movement control. Conversely, pantomime additionally requires ventro-dorsal and ventral streams for access to stored action engrams and retrieval of tool-action relationships.

Subgroups of Alzheimer's disease: stability of empirical clusters over time.

Although episodic memory impairment is usually the earliest sign of Alzheimer's disease (AD), there are up to 15% of patients presenting with early impairment in non-memory cognitive functions (i.e., atypical AD). Stratifying patients with AD may aid clinical trials. Previous studies divided patients by cognitive profile, focusing on cross-sectional analyses without testing stability of clusters over time. We used principal component analysis followed by cluster analyses in 127 patients with AD based on 24 cognitive scores at 0, 6, 12, and 24 months follow-up. We investigated the definition of clusters and their stability over time as well as interactions of cluster assignment and disease severity. At each time point, six distinct factors and four distinct clusters were extracted that did not differ substantially between time points. Clusters were defined by cognitive profile rather than disease severity. 85% of patients fell into the same cluster twice, 42% three times, and 17% four times. Subjects with focal semantic impairment progressed significantly faster than the other cluster. Longitudinally, focal deficits increased relatively rather than tending toward average disease severity. The observed similar cluster definitions at each time point indicate the validity of the approach. Cluster-specific longitudinal increases of focal impairments and significant between-cluster differences in disease progression make this approach useful for stratified inclusion into clinical trials.

Damage to ventral and dorsal language pathways in acute aphasia.

Converging evidence from neuroimaging studies and computational modelling suggests an organization of language in a dual dorsal-ventral brain network: a dorsal stream connects temporoparietal with frontal premotor regions through the superior longitudinal and arcuate fasciculus and integrates sensorimotor processing, e.g. in repetition of speech. A ventral stream connects temporal and prefrontal regions via the extreme capsule and mediates meaning, e.g. in auditory comprehension. The aim of our study was to test, in a large sample of 100 aphasic stroke patients, how well acute impairments of repetition and comprehension correlate with lesions of either the dorsal or ventral stream. We combined voxelwise lesion-behaviour mapping with the dorsal and ventral white matter fibre tracts determined by probabilistic fibre tracking in our previous study in healthy subjects. We found that repetition impairments were mainly associated with lesions located in the posterior temporoparietal region with a statistical lesion maximum in the periventricular white matter in projection of the dorsal superior longitudinal and arcuate fasciculus. In contrast, lesions associated with comprehension deficits were found more ventral-anterior in the temporoprefrontal region with a statistical lesion maximum between the insular cortex and the putamen in projection of the ventral extreme capsule. Individual lesion overlap with the dorsal fibre tract showed a significant negative correlation with repetition performance, whereas lesion overlap with the ventral fibre tract revealed a significant negative correlation with comprehension performance. To summarize, our results from patients with acute stroke lesions support the claim that language is organized along two segregated dorsal-ventral streams. Particularly, this is the first lesion study demonstrating that task performance on auditory comprehension measures requires an interaction between temporal and prefrontal brain regions via the ventral extreme capsule pathway.

Reduced precuneus deactivation during object naming in patients with mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer's disease, and frontotemporal lobar degeneration.

The precuneus is part of the default network of the human brain, which exhibits a high level of activity during the resting state and lower activity during task-related behavior. Typically, the posterior midline areas show this characteristic response in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies. In Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI), subjects exhibit a lack of this typical deactivation. The interpretation of these findings, however, is obfuscated by the presence of local pathology and atrophy in AD. In contrast to AD, in patients with early frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), the precuneus is virtually free of local neuropathology. In this study, we demonstrate reduced fMRI signal in the precuneus in a group of patients with FTLD during a confrontation naming task. We show that this effect in FTLD patients was (1) similar to that observed in AD and MCI and (2) not related to the degree of gray matter atrophy in the precuneus. We hypothesize that reduced deactivation of the default network is not related to local pathology but to a lack of connectivity, which decreases in both FTLD and AD, the major cortical dementias.

Early functional magnetic resonance imaging activations predict language outcome after stroke.

An accurate prediction of system-specific recovery after stroke is essential to provide rehabilitation therapy based on the individual needs. We explored the usefulness of functional magnetic resonance imaging scans from an auditory language comprehension experiment to predict individual language recovery in 21 aphasic stroke patients. Subjects with an at least moderate language impairment received extensive language testing 2 weeks and 6 months after left-hemispheric stroke. A multivariate machine learning technique was used to predict language outcome 6 months after stroke. In addition, we aimed to predict the degree of language improvement over 6 months. 76% of patients were correctly separated into those with good and bad language performance 6 months after stroke when based on functional magnetic resonance imaging data from language relevant areas. Accuracy further improved (86% correct assignments) when age and language score were entered alongside functional magnetic resonance imaging data into the fully automatic classifier. A similar accuracy was reached when predicting the degree of language improvement based on imaging, age and language performance. No prediction better than chance level was achieved when exploring the usefulness of diffusion weighted imaging as well as functional magnetic resonance imaging acquired two days after stroke. This study demonstrates the high potential of current machine learning techniques to predict system-specific clinical outcome even for a disease as heterogeneous as stroke. Best prediction of language recovery is achieved when the brain activation potential after system-specific stimulation is assessed in the second week post stroke. More intensive early rehabilitation could be provided for those with a predicted poor recovery and the extension to other systems, for example, motor and attention seems feasible.

Combining functional and anatomical connectivity reveals brain networks for auditory language comprehension.

Cognitive functions are organized in distributed, overlapping, and interacting brain networks. Investigation of those large-scale brain networks is a major task in neuroimaging research. Here, we introduce a novel combination of functional and anatomical connectivity to study the network topology subserving a cognitive function of interest. (i) In a given network, direct interactions between network nodes are identified by analyzing functional MRI time series with the multivariate method of directed partial correlation (dPC). This method provides important improvements over shortcomings that are typical for ordinary (partial) correlation techniques. (ii) For directly interacting pairs of nodes, a region-to-region probabilistic fiber tracking on diffusion tensor imaging data is performed to identify the most probable anatomical white matter fiber tracts mediating the functional interactions. This combined approach is applied to the language domain to investigate the network topology of two levels of auditory comprehension: lower-level speech perception (i.e., phonological processing) and higher-level speech recognition (i.e., semantic processing). For both processing levels, dPC analyses revealed the functional network topology and identified central network nodes by the number of direct interactions with other nodes. Tractography showed that these interactions are mediated by distinct ventral (via the extreme capsule) and dorsal (via the arcuate/superior longitudinal fascicle fiber system) long- and short-distance association tracts as well as commissural fibers. Our findings demonstrate how both processing routines are segregated in the brain on a large-scale network level. Combining dPC with probabilistic tractography is a promising approach to unveil how cognitive functions emerge through interaction of functionally interacting and anatomically interconnected brain regions.

Correct and erroneous picture naming responses in healthy subjects.

In this functional magnetic resonance imaging study, brain activations of correct and erroneous picture naming responses were investigated in 34 healthy subjects using an event-related design. We regarded main effects comprising all (ALL), false (FAL), or correct (COR) responses only. Despite the rare error occurrence, activation maxima differed between all three main effects. To investigate the influence of naming accuracy on brain activations, we therefore (1) considered the number of errors as covariates, and (2) compared carefully matched sets of FAL and COR for subjects with higher error rates. As a result, activations in left middle/medial frontal gyrus were significantly correlated with number of errors. The neural substrate of naming errors appears to be separated in several subsystems of activation: first bilateral activations in anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), prefrontal, and premotor regions associated with monitoring processes; second the involvement of right (para)hippocampal gyrus most likely indicating post-error processes of retention; third perisylvian (especially inferior frontal) language areas. These activations were not restricted to false responses, but were with less intensity also recruited for correct responses. In contrast, there was no specific activation for successful name retrieval in correct trials. To conclude, the underlying processing mechanisms of erroneous and correct naming responses are strikingly similar; self-monitoring appears to be a general mechanism of the naming process.

The separation of processing stages in a lexical interference fMRI-paradigm.

In picture-word interference paradigms, the picture naming process is influenced by an additional presentation of linguistic distractors. Naming response times (RTs) are speeded (facilitation) by associatively-related and phonologically-related words when compared to unrelated words, while they are slowed down by categorically-related words (inhibition), given that distractor onsets occur at appropriate stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs). In the present study with healthy subjects, we for the first time integrated all four auditorily presented distractor types into a single paradigm at an SOA of -200 ms, in order to directly compare behavioral and neural interference effects between them. The behavioral study corroborated results of previous studies and revealed that associatively-related distractors speeded RTs even more than phonologically-related distractors, thereby becoming equally fast as naming without distractors. Distractors were assumed to specifically enhance activation of brain areas corresponding to processing stages as determined in a cognitive model of word production (Indefrey, P., Levelt, W.J.M., 2004. The spatial and temporal signatures of word production components. Cognition 92, 101-144.). Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at 3 T revealed activation of left superior temporal gyrus exclusively for phonologically-related distractors, and activation of left or right lingual gyrus exclusively for associatively-related and categorically-related distractors, respectively. Moreover, phonologically-related distractors elicited phonological-phonetic networks, and both semantic distractors evoked areas associated with mental imagery, semantics, and episodic memory retrieval and associations. While processes involved in distractor inhibition (e.g., conflict/competition monitoring) and high articulatory demands were observed for categorically-related distractors, priming of articulatory planning was revealed for associatively-related distractors. We conclude that activations of neural networks as obtained by the fMRI interference paradigm can be predicted from a cognitive model.

Ventral and dorsal pathways for language.

Built on an analogy between the visual and auditory systems, the following dual stream model for language processing was suggested recently: a dorsal stream is involved in mapping sound to articulation, and a ventral stream in mapping sound to meaning. The goal of the study presented here was to test the neuroanatomical basis of this model. Combining functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with a novel diffusion tensor imaging (DTI)-based tractography method we were able to identify the most probable anatomical pathways connecting brain regions activated during two prototypical language tasks. Sublexical repetition of speech is subserved by a dorsal pathway, connecting the superior temporal lobe and premotor cortices in the frontal lobe via the arcuate and superior longitudinal fascicle. In contrast, higher-level language comprehension is mediated by a ventral pathway connecting the middle temporal lobe and the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex via the extreme capsule. Thus, according to our findings, the function of the dorsal route, traditionally considered to be the major language pathway, is mainly restricted to sensory-motor mapping of sound to articulation, whereas linguistic processing of sound to meaning requires temporofrontal interaction transmitted via the ventral route.