Date of this Version

1-27-2016

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Understanding the functions of different brain areas has represented a major endeavor of contemporary neurosciences.The purpose of this paper was to pinpoint the connectivity of Brodmann area 20 (BA20) (inferior temporal gyrus, fusiform gyrus) in language tasks. A meta-analysis was conducted to assess the language network in which BA20 is involved.The DataBase of Brainmap was used; 11 papers corresponding to 12 experimental conditions with a total of 207 subjects were included in this analysis. Our results demonstrated seven clusters of activation including other temporal lobe areas (BA3, BA21), the insula, and the prefrontal cortex; minor clusters in the cingulate gyrus and the occipital lobe were observed; however, the volumes of all the activation clusters were small. Our results suggest that regardless of BA20 having certain participation in language processes it cannot be considered as a core language processing area (Wernicke’s area); nonetheless, it could be regarded as kind of language processing marginal area, participating in “extendedWernicke’s area” or simply “Wernicke’s system.” It is suggested that “coreWernicke’s area” roughly corresponds to BA21, BA22, BA41, and BA42, while a “language associations area” roughly corresponds to BA20, BA37, BA38, BA39, and BA40 (“extendedWernicke’s area” or “Wernicke’s system”).

Comments

Originally published in Neuroscience Journal.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Download

Share

COinS
 

Rights Statement

Rights Statement

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).