Richardson Fiona M, Price Cathy J
Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, London, UK.
Brain Struct Funct. 2009 Oct;213(6):511-23. doi: 10.1007/s00429-009-0211-y. Epub 2009 Jul 18.
In recent years, the demonstration that structural changes can occur in the human brain beyond those associated with development, ageing and neuropathology has revealed a new approach to studying the neural basis of behaviour. In this review paper, we focus on structural imaging studies of language that have utilised behavioural measures in order to investigate the neural correlates of language skills in the undamaged brain. We report studies that have used two different techniques: voxel-based morphometry of whole brain grey or white matter images and diffusion tensor imaging. At present, there are relatively few structural imaging studies of language. We group them into those that investigated (1) the perception of novel speech sounds, (2) the links between speech sounds and their meaning, (3) speech production, and (4) reading. We highlight the validity of the findings by comparing the results to those from functional imaging studies. Finally, we conclude by summarising the novel contribution of these studies to date and potential directions for future research.
近年来，有证据表明，人类大脑中会出现与发育、衰老和神经病理学无关的结构变化，这揭示了一种研究行为神经基础的新方法。在这篇综述论文中，我们重点关注语言的结构成像研究，这些研究利用行为测量方法来探究未受损大脑中语言技能的神经关联。我们报告了使用两种不同技术的研究：基于体素的全脑灰质或白质图像形态测量和扩散张量成像。目前，关于语言的结构成像研究相对较少。我们将它们分为以下几类：（1）对新语音的感知；（2）语音与其意义之间的联系；（3）言语产生；（4）阅读。我们通过将结果与功能成像研究的结果进行比较，突出了这些发现的有效性。最后，我们总结了迄今为止这些研究的新贡献以及未来研究的潜在方向。
