Asyntactic comprehension, working memory, and acute ischemia in Broca%26apos;s area versus angular gyrus

作者：Newhart Melissa; Trupe Lydia A; Gomez Yessenia; Cloutman Lauren; Molitoris J Jarred; Davis Cameron; Leigh Richard; Gottesman Rebecca F; Race David; Hillis Argye E^*

来源：Cortex, 2012, 48(10): 1288-1297.

DOI：10.1016/j.cortex.2011.09.009

• Asyntactic comprehension
• Working memory
• Broca%26apos
• s area
• Angular gyrus

We evaluated sentence comprehension of variety of sentence constructions and components of short-term memory (STM) in 53 individuals with acute ischemic stroke, to test some current hypotheses about the role of Broca%26apos;s area in these tasks. We found that some patients show structure-specific, task-independent deficits in sentence comprehension, with chance level of accuracy on passive reversible sentences, more impaired comprehension of object-cleft than subject-cleft sentences, and more impaired comprehension of reversible than irreversible sentences in both sentence-picture matching and enactment tasks. In a dichotomous analysis, this pattern of %26quot;asyntactic comprehension%26quot; was associated with dysfunctional tissue in left angular gyrus, rather than dysfunctional tissue in Broca%26apos;s area as previously proposed. Tissue dysfunction in left Brodmann area (BA) 44, part of Broca%26apos;s area, was associated with phonological STM impairment defined by forward digit span %26lt;= 4. Verbal working memory (VWM) defined by backward digit span %26lt;= 2 was associated with tissue dysfunction left premotor cortex (BA 6). In a continuous analysis, patients with acute ischemia in left BA 44 were impaired in phonological STM. Patients with ischemia in left BA 45 and BA 6 were impaired in passive, reversible sentences, STM, and VWM. Patients with ischemia in left BA 39 were impaired in passive reversible sentences, object-cleft sentences, STM, and VWM. Therefore, various components of working memory seem to depend on a network of brain regions that include left angular gyms and posterior frontal cortex (BA 6, 44, 45); left BA 45 and angular gyrus (BA 39) may have additional roles in comprehension of syntax such as thematic role checking.

• 出版日期2012-12