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Abstract:
The paper will present a series of event-related fMRI studies
systematically varying the presence/absence of lexical-semantic,
syntactic and prosodic information in the auditory language input.
The data indicate that syntactic processes are supported by
inferior frontal as well as superior temporal regions predominantly
in the left hemisphere, but also by homologue areas in the right
hemisphere. Prosodic processes in contrast appear to involve the
same frontal and temporal regions predominantly in the right
hemisphere. Frontal areas at the junction between the inferior
frontal gyrus and the precentral gyrus subserve lexical-semantic
processes. The combined findings suggest that auditory language
processing is supported by a neural network spreading over the
peri-sylvian cortex consisting of different parts each with its
particular functional specification. When confronted with normal
language input this network seems to work automatically without
requiring additional neural resources. Additional resources in
different parts of the network appear to be necessary when
particular aspects of language processes are in focus either due to
changes in the input or due to changes in the task demands.
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