Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Aphasia and Neurolinguistics Research Laboratory, Northwestern University, 2240 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208, USA.
Neuroimage. 2012 Jan 2;59(1):815-23. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.07.057. Epub 2011 Jul 27.
Complex sentence processing is supported by a left-lateralized neural network including inferior frontal cortex and posterior superior temporal cortex. This study investigates the pattern of connectivity and information flow within this network. We used fMRI BOLD data derived from 12 healthy participants reported in an earlier study (Thompson, C. K., Den Ouden, D. B., Bonakdarpour, B., Garibaldi, K., & Parrish, T. B. (2010b). Neural plasticity and treatment-induced recovery of sentence processing in agrammatism. Neuropsychologia, 48(11), 3211-3227) to identify activation peaks associated with object-cleft over syntactically less complex subject-cleft processing. Directed Partial Correlation Analysis was conducted on time series extracted from participant-specific activation peaks and showed evidence of functional connectivity between four regions, linearly between premotor cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, posterior superior temporal sulcus and anterior middle temporal gyrus. This pattern served as the basis for Dynamic Causal Modeling of networks with a driving input to posterior superior temporal cortex, which likely supports thematic role assignment, and networks with a driving input to inferior frontal cortex, a core region associated with syntactic computation. The optimal model was determined through both frequentist and Bayesian Model Selection and turned out to reflect a network with a primary drive from inferior frontal cortex and modulation of the connection between inferior frontal cortex and posterior superior temporal cortex by complex sentence processing. The winning model also showed a substantive role for a feedback mechanism from posterior superior temporal cortex back to inferior frontal cortex. We suggest that complex syntactic processing is driven by word-order analysis, supported by inferior frontal cortex, in an interactive relation with posterior superior temporal cortex, which supports verb argument structure processing.
复杂句处理由包括左侧额下回和后上颞顶叶的神经网络支持。本研究旨在探讨该网络内的连接模式和信息流。我们使用了来自先前研究（Thompson，C.K.，Den Ouden，D.B.，Bonakdarpour，B.，Garibaldi，K.，&Parrish，T.B.（2010b））的 12 名健康参与者的 fMRI BOLD 数据，以识别与物主结构比句法上更简单的主语结构处理相关的激活峰。对从特定参与者的激活峰提取的时间序列进行定向偏相关分析，表明四个区域之间存在功能连接的证据，即运动前皮层、额下回、后上颞顶叶和前中颞叶之间呈线性连接。该模式为具有后上颞顶叶驱动输入的网络的动态因果建模提供了基础，这可能支持主题角色分配，以及具有额下回驱动输入的网络，额下回是与句法计算相关的核心区域。通过频率论和贝叶斯模型选择确定了最佳模型，结果表明，该模型反映了一个由额下回主导，以及复杂句处理对额下回和后上颞顶叶之间连接进行调制的网络。获胜模型还显示了后上颞顶叶对额下回的反馈机制的实质性作用。我们认为，复杂的句法处理是由词序分析驱动的，由额下回支持，与后上颞顶叶交互作用，后上颞顶叶支持动词论元结构处理。
