Study of functional MRI of two language tasks in normal subjects.

Objective:To investigate the activated brain imaging of functional magnetic resonance in normal adult subjects whose native language was Chinese and provide referred information for selecting proper methods to localize language area.Methods:Twelve right-handed normal volunteers whose native language was Chinese participated in this study.They underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning inside a 3.0 T MR scanner when performing the word generation and the verb generation task,respectively.The SPM5 software was used to handle and analyze the data to obtain functional activated brain imaging,and calculate the lateralization indexes.Results:The bilateral inferior frontal gyrus,anterior cingutate,supplementary motor area,left middle frontal gyrus,precentral gyrus,partial nuclear groups of basal ganglia,bilateral insula,occipital lobe and cerebellum were strongly activated in the processes of both word generation and verb generation.The activated brain imaging and lateralization indexes indicated a significant lateralized activation of left hemisphere.Conclusion:The brain imaging demonstrates left hemisphere superiority in the processes of word generation and verb generation in Chinese.Furthermore,the Broca's area was effectively activated by both of the two tasks above-mentioned.fMRI can be used as one of feasible methods to investigate the localization of language area.