To date the evidence which has emerged from both anatomo‑correlative and neuroimaging studies investigating the brain areas responsible for noun and verb processing [e.g. 1, 2, 3] is inconsistent; this may be due to the lack of homogeneity in the tasks used in the various experiments. The metanalysis described in this study aims at disentangling brain regions that are systematically associated with a given grammatical class from those whose grammatical‑class specificity is modulated by the task used. We collected 441 activation peak coordinates associated with either nouns or verbs in simple effect analyses from 27 neuroimaging studies published from 1996 to 2008, and employed a hierarchical cluster algorithm adopting the Ward criterion [4] to automatically segregate groups of activation coordinates into separate clusters with mean standard deviations of less than 7.5 mm [5] in the three directions (x, y, z). This procedure produced a set of 37 clusters, which were tested with a chi‑square analysis for specificity for grammatical class and/or task. Nine of these clusters showed a significant task-by-grammatical class interaction, which in derivational tasks was usually caused by noun‑specific activation and in picture naming and fluency tasks by verb‑specific activation. These results are discussed in the light of the cognitive processes underlying the individual experimental tasks. REFERENCES [1] Perani, D., Cappa, S.F., Schnur, T., Tettamanti, M., Collina, S., Rosa, M.M., Fazio, F. (1999). The neural correlates of verb and noun processing. A PET study. Brain, 122, 2337‑2344. [2] Aggujaro, S., Crepaldi, D., Pistarini, C., Taricco, M., Luzzatti, C. (2006). Neuro-anatomical correlates of impaired retrieval of verbs and nouns: Interaction of grammatical class, imageability and actionality. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 19, 175-194. [3] Tyler, L.K., Russell, R., Fadili, J., Moss, H.E. (2001). The neural representation of nouns and verbs: PET studies. Brain, 124, 1619-1634. [4] Ward, J.H. (1963). Hierarchical grouping to optimize an objective function. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 158, 236-244. [5] Jobard, G., Crivello, F., and Tzourio-Mazoyer, N. (2003). Evaluation of the dual route theory of reading: a metanalysis of 35 neuroimaging studies. NeuroImage, 20, 693-712.
Crepaldi, D., Berlingeri, M., Cattinelli, I., Borghese, A., Paulesu, E., Luzzatti, C. (2008). Nouns and verb in the brain: a meta-analysis of 27 fMRI and PET studies. Intervento presentato a: Meeting of the European Federation of the Neuropsychological Societies, Edinburgh, UK.
Nouns and verb in the brain: a meta-analysis of 27 fMRI and PET studies
CREPALDI, DAVIDE;BERLINGERI, MANUELA;PAULESU, ERALDO;LUZZATTI, CLAUDIO GIUSEPPE
2008
Abstract
To date the evidence which has emerged from both anatomo‑correlative and neuroimaging studies investigating the brain areas responsible for noun and verb processing [e.g. 1, 2, 3] is inconsistent; this may be due to the lack of homogeneity in the tasks used in the various experiments. The metanalysis described in this study aims at disentangling brain regions that are systematically associated with a given grammatical class from those whose grammatical‑class specificity is modulated by the task used. We collected 441 activation peak coordinates associated with either nouns or verbs in simple effect analyses from 27 neuroimaging studies published from 1996 to 2008, and employed a hierarchical cluster algorithm adopting the Ward criterion [4] to automatically segregate groups of activation coordinates into separate clusters with mean standard deviations of less than 7.5 mm [5] in the three directions (x, y, z). This procedure produced a set of 37 clusters, which were tested with a chi‑square analysis for specificity for grammatical class and/or task. Nine of these clusters showed a significant task-by-grammatical class interaction, which in derivational tasks was usually caused by noun‑specific activation and in picture naming and fluency tasks by verb‑specific activation. These results are discussed in the light of the cognitive processes underlying the individual experimental tasks. REFERENCES [1] Perani, D., Cappa, S.F., Schnur, T., Tettamanti, M., Collina, S., Rosa, M.M., Fazio, F. (1999). The neural correlates of verb and noun processing. A PET study. Brain, 122, 2337‑2344. [2] Aggujaro, S., Crepaldi, D., Pistarini, C., Taricco, M., Luzzatti, C. (2006). Neuro-anatomical correlates of impaired retrieval of verbs and nouns: Interaction of grammatical class, imageability and actionality. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 19, 175-194. [3] Tyler, L.K., Russell, R., Fadili, J., Moss, H.E. (2001). The neural representation of nouns and verbs: PET studies. Brain, 124, 1619-1634. [4] Ward, J.H. (1963). Hierarchical grouping to optimize an objective function. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 158, 236-244. [5] Jobard, G., Crivello, F., and Tzourio-Mazoyer, N. (2003). Evaluation of the dual route theory of reading: a metanalysis of 35 neuroimaging studies. NeuroImage, 20, 693-712.
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