1 Neuroscience and Aphasia Research Unit, School Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester, UK.
Brain. 2014 Mar;137(Pt 3):931-43. doi: 10.1093/brain/awt373. Epub 2014 Feb 10.
Wernicke's aphasia occurs after a stroke to classical language comprehension regions in the left temporoparietal cortex. Consequently, auditory-verbal comprehension is significantly impaired in Wernicke's aphasia but the capacity to comprehend visually presented materials (written words and pictures) is partially spared. This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the neural basis of written word and picture semantic processing in Wernicke's aphasia, with the wider aim of examining how the semantic system is altered after damage to the classical comprehension regions. Twelve participants with chronic Wernicke's aphasia and 12 control participants performed semantic animate-inanimate judgements and a visual height judgement baseline task. Whole brain and region of interest analysis in Wernicke's aphasia and control participants found that semantic judgements were underpinned by activation in the ventral and anterior temporal lobes bilaterally. The Wernicke's aphasia group displayed an 'over-activation' in comparison with control participants, indicating that anterior temporal lobe regions become increasingly influential following reduction in posterior semantic resources. Semantic processing of written words in Wernicke's aphasia was additionally supported by recruitment of the right anterior superior temporal lobe, a region previously associated with recovery from auditory-verbal comprehension impairments. Overall, the results provide support for models in which the anterior temporal lobes are crucial for multimodal semantic processing and that these regions may be accessed without support from classic posterior comprehension regions.
韦尼克失语症发生于左颞顶叶皮质的经典语言理解区域的中风后。因此，韦尼克失语症患者的听觉言语理解能力严重受损，但理解视觉呈现的材料（书面文字和图片）的能力部分保留。本研究使用功能磁共振成像来研究韦尼克失语症患者的书面文字和图片语义处理的神经基础，更广泛的目的是检查在经典理解区域受损后语义系统是如何改变的。12 名慢性韦尼克失语症患者和 12 名对照组参与者进行了语义生物-非生物判断和视觉高度判断基线任务。韦尼克失语症组和对照组的全脑和感兴趣区域分析发现，语义判断依赖于双侧腹侧和前颞叶的激活。与对照组相比，韦尼克失语症组表现出“过度激活”，表明在前部颞叶区域减少的情况下，这些区域的影响力越来越大。韦尼克失语症患者对书面文字的语义处理还得到了右侧前上颞叶的支持，该区域以前与听觉言语理解障碍的恢复有关。总的来说，这些结果支持了这样的模型，即前颞叶对多模态语义处理至关重要，并且这些区域可以在没有经典后部理解区域支持的情况下被访问。
