Developmental and skill effects on the neural correlates of semantic processing to visually presented words - PubMed (original) (raw)

Comparative Study

. 2006 Nov;27(11):915-24.

doi: 10.1002/hbm.20231.

Affiliations

Comparative Study

Developmental and skill effects on the neural correlates of semantic processing to visually presented words

Tai-Li Chou et al. Hum Brain Mapp. 2006 Nov.

Abstract

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to explore the neural correlates of semantic judgments to visual words in a group of 9- to 15-year-old children. Subjects were asked to indicate if word pairs were related in meaning. Consistent with previous findings in adults, children showed activation in bilateral inferior frontal gyri (Brodmann area [BA] 47, 45) and left middle temporal gyrus (BA 21). Words with strong semantic association elicited significantly greater activation in bilateral inferior parietal lobules (BA 40), suggesting stronger integration of highly related semantic features. By contrast, words with weak semantic association elicited greater activation in left inferior frontal gyrus (BA 45) and middle temporal gyrus (BA 21), suggesting more difficult feature search and more extensive access to semantic representations. We also examined whether age and skill explained unique variance in the patterns of activation. Increasing age was correlated with greater activation in left middle temporal gyrus (BA 21) and inferior parietal lobule (BA 40), suggesting that older children have more elaborated semantic representations and more complete semantic integration processes, respectively. Decreasing age was correlated with activation in right superior temporal gyrus (BA 22) and decreasing accuracy was correlated with activation in right middle temporal gyrus (BA 21), suggesting the engagement of ancillary systems in the right hemisphere for younger and lower-skill children.

Copyright 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

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Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1

Brain activations for the related versus baseline (green) and for the unrelated versus baseline (red). The overlap between the two contrasts is represented in blue. Both the related and unrelated pairs produced greater activation in bilateral inferior frontal gyri (IFG), left middle frontal gyrus (MFG), left medial frontal gyrus (MeFG), left middle temporal gyrus (MTG), left fusiform gyrus (FG), right posterior cingulate gyrus (PC), right cuneus (CU), and left thalamus (TH). The unrelated pairs produced additional activation in left anterior cingulate (AC).

Figure 2

Figure 2

Correlation of activation with semantic association for the related word pairs on the top row. Higher association (green) was correlated with greater activation in left precuneus (PCU), right inferior parietal lobule (IPL) extending to the intraparietal sulcus, right superior temporal gyrus (STG), and bilateral middle frontal gyri (MFG). Lower association (red) was correlated with greater activation in left middle temporal gyrus (MTG). Correlation of activation with age for the related word pairs on the bottom row. Increasing age (green) was correlated with greater activation in left inferior parietal lobule (IPL) and left middle frontal gyrus (MFG). Decreasing age (red) was correlated with greater activation in right medial frontal gyrus (MeFG) and right superior temporal gyrus (STG).

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