Structural and functional correlates for language efficiency in auditory word processing

Jung, JeYoung; Kim, Sunmi; Cho, Hyesuk; Nam, Kichun

Abstract

© 2017 Jung et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This study aims to provide convergent understanding of the neural basis of auditory word processing efficiency using a multimodal imaging. We investigated the structural and functional correlates of word processing efficiency in healthy individuals. We acquired two structural imaging (T1-weighted imaging and diffusion tensor imaging) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during auditory word processing (phonological and semantic tasks). Our results showed that better phonological performance was predicted by the greater thalamus activity. In contrary, better semantic performance was associated with the less activation in the left posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG), supporting the neural efficiency hypothesis that better task performance requires less brain activation. Furthermore, our network analysis revealed the semantic network including the left anterior temporal lobe (ATL), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and pMTG was correlated with the semantic efficiency. Especially, this network acted as a neural efficient manner during auditory word processing. Structurally, DLPFC and cingulum contributed to the word processing efficiency. Also, the parietal cortex showed a significate association with the word processing efficiency. Our results demonstrated that two features of word processing efficiency, phonology and semantics, can be supported in different brain regions and, importantly, the way serving it in each region was different according to the feature of word processing. Our findings suggest that word processing efficiency can be achieved by in collaboration of multiple brain regions involved in language and general cognitive function structurally and functionally.

Citation

Jung, J., Kim, S., Cho, H., & Nam, K. (2017). Structural and functional correlates for language efficiency in auditory word processing. PLoS ONE, 12(9), Article e0184232. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0184232

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 21, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Sep 11, 2017
• Publication Date: Sep 11, 2017
• Deposit Date: May 22, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: May 28, 2020
• Journal: PLoS ONE
• Electronic ISSN: 1932-6203
• Publisher: Public Library of Science
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 12
• Issue: 9
• Article Number: e0184232
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0184232
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3794490
• Publisher URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0184232