Objective: Electrocortical stimulation mapping (ECS) is widely used to identify essential language areas, but sentence-level processing has rarely been investigated. Methods: While undergoing awake surgery in the dominant left hemisphere, 6 subjects were asked to comprehend sentences varying in their demands on syntactic processing. Results: In all 6 subjects, stimulation of the inferior frontal gyrus disrupted comprehension of passive sentences, which critically depend on syntactic processing to correctly assign grammatical roles, without disrupting comprehension of simpler tasks. In 4 of the 6 subjects, these sites were localized to the pars opercularis. Sentence comprehension was also disrupted by stimulation of other perisylvian sites, but in a more variable manner. Conclusions: These findings suggest that there may be language regions that differentially contribute to sentence processing and which therefore are best identified using sentence-level tasks. The functional consequences of resecting these sites remain to be investigated.

Evaluating syntactic comprehension during awake intraoperative cortical stimulation mapping / Riva, Marco; Wilson, Stephen M; Cai, Ruofan; Castellano, Antonella; Jordan, Kesshi M; Henry, Roland G; Gorno Tempini, Maria Luisa; Berger, Mitchel S; Chang, Edward F. - In: JOURNAL OF NEUROSURGERY. - ISSN 0022-3085. - (2022), pp. 1-8. [Epub ahead of print] [10.3171/2022.8.JNS221335]

Evaluating syntactic comprehension during awake intraoperative cortical stimulation mapping

Castellano, Antonella;
2022-01-01

Abstract

Objective: Electrocortical stimulation mapping (ECS) is widely used to identify essential language areas, but sentence-level processing has rarely been investigated. Methods: While undergoing awake surgery in the dominant left hemisphere, 6 subjects were asked to comprehend sentences varying in their demands on syntactic processing. Results: In all 6 subjects, stimulation of the inferior frontal gyrus disrupted comprehension of passive sentences, which critically depend on syntactic processing to correctly assign grammatical roles, without disrupting comprehension of simpler tasks. In 4 of the 6 subjects, these sites were localized to the pars opercularis. Sentence comprehension was also disrupted by stimulation of other perisylvian sites, but in a more variable manner. Conclusions: These findings suggest that there may be language regions that differentially contribute to sentence processing and which therefore are best identified using sentence-level tasks. The functional consequences of resecting these sites remain to be investigated.
2022
awake brain surgery
cortical stimulation mapping
language
sentence
surgical technique
syntax
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11768/136176
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