[Anatomic and topographic models of the cerebral areas that activates during the linguistic functions]

Abstract

Aim: A brief revision was performed in order to develop a topographic model of cerebral activation during silent reading, syllable's repetition and emotional prosody, based in recent neuroimaging studies.

Development: It has been reported that the words are analyzed in both occipital hemispheres during silent reading, after they are 'written' in the right temporal cortex while the integration of the semantic and phonologic processes are integrated on different left temporal areas and also in the left frontal lower part. The understanding is achieved in the left-middle temporal cortex. In the other hand, activation during articulatory movements is carried out in the left supratemporal gyrus and the left motor and premotor cortex, the left putamen and part of both hemispheres of the cerebellum. Finally, recognition of the emotional prosody occurs in three stages: obtaining of the acoustic information in some areas of the right temporal lobe, representation of acoustic sequences in the right posterio-superior temporal area, and an evaluation of the emotional prosody in the lower frontal bilateral cortex, with the involvement of the basal ganglia in the emotional expression.

Conclusions: The location and synchrony of the areas that activate during the language processing is lateralized toward the left hemisphere and it involves cortical and subcortical areas, except for the emotional prosody. The understanding of the language processes will open the field for to take advantage of the plastic mechanisms for the speech therapy and rehabilitation.