TY - JOUR
T1 - Syntactic processing depends on dorsal language tracts
AU - Wilson, Stephen M.
AU - Galantucci, Sebastiano
AU - Tartaglia, Maria Carmela
AU - Rising, Kindle
AU - Patterson, Dianne K.
AU - Henry, Maya L.
AU - Ogar, Jennifer M.
AU - DeLeon, Jessica
AU - Miller, Bruce L.
AU - Gorno-Tempini, Maria Luisa
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank M. Growdon, J. Jang and B. Khan for administrative support, N. Dronkers and F. Agosta for helpful discussions, the staff of the UCSF Memory and Aging Center, and the patients, caregivers, and volunteers who participated in the research. Supported by NIH (NIDCD R03 DC010878, NINDS R01 NS050915, NIA P01 AG019724, NIA P50 AG023501); Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec (FRSQ); State of California (DHS 04-35516); Alzheimer's Disease Research Center of California (03-75271 DHS/ADP/ARCC); Larry L. Hillblom Foundation; John Douglas French Alzheimer's Foundation; Koret Family Foundation; McBean Family Foundation.
PY - 2011/10/20
Y1 - 2011/10/20
N2 - Frontal and temporal language areas involved in syntactic processing are connected by several dorsal and ventral tracts, but the functional roles of the different tracts are not well understood. To identify which white matter tract(s) are important for syntactic processing, we examined the relationship between white matter damage and syntactic deficits in patients with primary progressive aphasia, using multimodal neuroimaging and neurolinguistic assessment. Diffusion tensor imaging showed that microstructural damage to left hemisphere dorsal tracts-the superior longitudinal fasciculus including its arcuate component-was strongly associated with deficits in comprehension and production of syntax. Damage to these dorsal tracts predicted syntactic deficits after gray matter atrophy was taken into account, and fMRI confirmed that these tracts connect regions modulated by syntactic processing. In contrast, damage to ventral tracts-the extreme capsule fiber system or the uncinate fasciculus-was not associated with syntactic deficits. Our findings show that syntactic processing depends primarily on dorsal language tracts.
AB - Frontal and temporal language areas involved in syntactic processing are connected by several dorsal and ventral tracts, but the functional roles of the different tracts are not well understood. To identify which white matter tract(s) are important for syntactic processing, we examined the relationship between white matter damage and syntactic deficits in patients with primary progressive aphasia, using multimodal neuroimaging and neurolinguistic assessment. Diffusion tensor imaging showed that microstructural damage to left hemisphere dorsal tracts-the superior longitudinal fasciculus including its arcuate component-was strongly associated with deficits in comprehension and production of syntax. Damage to these dorsal tracts predicted syntactic deficits after gray matter atrophy was taken into account, and fMRI confirmed that these tracts connect regions modulated by syntactic processing. In contrast, damage to ventral tracts-the extreme capsule fiber system or the uncinate fasciculus-was not associated with syntactic deficits. Our findings show that syntactic processing depends primarily on dorsal language tracts.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.neuron.2011.09.014
DO - 10.1016/j.neuron.2011.09.014
M3 - Article
C2 - 22017996
AN - SCOPUS:80054842408
SN - 0896-6273
VL - 72
SP - 397
EP - 403
JO - Neuron
JF - Neuron
IS - 2
ER -