Asyntactic comprehension, working memory, and acute ischemia in Broca¡¯s area versus angular gyrus

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• 作者：Melissa Newhart ; Lydia A. Trupe ; Yessenia Gomez ; Lauren Cloutman ; J. Jarred Molitoris ; Cameron Davis ; Richard Leigh ; Rebecca F. Gottesman ; David Race ; Argye E. Hillis
• 关键词：Asyntactic comprehension ; Working memory ; Broca&rsquo ; s area ; Angular gyrus
• 刊名：Cortex
• 出版年：2012
• 出版时间：November-December, 2012
• 年：2012
• 卷：48
• 期：10
• 页码：1288-1297
• 全文大小：1065 K

文摘

We evaluated sentence comprehension of variety of sentence constructions and components of short-term memory (STM) in 53 individuals with acute ischemic stroke, to test some current hypotheses about the role of Broca¡¯s area in these tasks. We found that some patients show structure-specific, task-independent deficits in sentence comprehension, with chance level of accuracy on passive reversible sentences, more impaired comprehension of object-cleft than subject-cleft sentences, and more impaired comprehension of reversible than irreversible sentences in both sentence-picture matching and enactment tasks. In a dichotomous analysis, this pattern of ¡°asyntactic comprehension¡± was associated with dysfunctional tissue in left angular gyrus, rather than dysfunctional tissue in Broca¡¯s area as previously proposed. Tissue dysfunction in left Brodmann area (BA) 44, part of Broca¡¯s area, was associated with phonological STM impairment defined by forward digit span ¡Ü 4. Verbal working memory (VWM) defined by backward digit span ¡Ü 2 was associated with tissue dysfunction left premotor cortex (BA 6). In a continuous analysis, patients with acute ischemia in left BA 44 were impaired in phonological STM. Patients with ischemia in left BA 45 and BA 6 were impaired in passive, reversible sentences, STM, and VWM. Patients with ischemia in left BA 39 were impaired in passive reversible sentences, object-cleft sentences, STM, and VWM. Therefore, various components of working memory seem to depend on a network of brain regions that include left angular gyrus and posterior frontal cortex (BA 6, 44, 45); left BA 45 and angular gyrus (BA 39) may have additional roles in comprehension of syntax such as thematic role checking.