Ulm University, Department of Psychiatry, Ulm, Germany.
PLoS One. 2018 Jul 5;13(7):e0198894. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0198894. eCollection 2018.
The neurodevelopmental consequences of deafness on the functional neuroarchitecture of the conceptual system have not been intensively investigated so far. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we therefore identified brain areas involved in conceptual processing in deaf and hearing participants. Conceptual processing was probed by a pictorial animacy decision task. Furthermore, brain areas sensitive to observing verbal signs and to observing non-verbal visual hand actions were identified in deaf participants. In hearing participants, brain areas responsive to environmental sounds and the observation of visual hand actions were determined. We found a stronger recruitment of superior and middle temporal cortex in deaf compared to hearing participants during animacy decisions. This region, which forms auditory cortex in hearing people according to the sound listening task, was also activated in deaf participants, when they observed sign language, but not when they observed non-verbal hand actions. These results indicate that conceptual processing in deaf people more strongly depends on language representations compared to hearing people. Furthermore, additionally enhanced activation in visual and motor areas of deaf versus hearing participants during animacy decisions and a more frequent report of visual and motor features in the property listing task suggest that the loss of the auditory channel is partially compensated by an increased importance of visual and motor information for constituting object knowledge. Hence, our results indicate that conceptual processing in deaf compared to hearing people is more strongly based on the language system, complemented by an enhanced contribution of the visuo-motor system.
迄今为止，耳聋对概念系统功能神经结构的神经发育后果尚未得到深入研究。因此，我们使用功能磁共振成像 (fMRI) 来确定耳聋和听力参与者中参与概念处理的大脑区域。通过图像生动性决策任务来探测概念处理。此外，还确定了耳聋参与者中观察口头符号和非口头手部动作时敏感的大脑区域。在听力参与者中，确定了对环境声音和观察手部动作敏感的大脑区域。我们发现，在生动性决策中，耳聋参与者比听力参与者更强烈地招募了上颞叶和中颞叶皮层。这个区域根据听力任务形成了听觉皮层，当耳聋参与者观察手语时，该区域也会被激活，而当他们观察非口头手部动作时则不会。这些结果表明，与听力参与者相比，耳聋者的概念处理更依赖于语言表达。此外，在生动性决策中，耳聋参与者比听力参与者的视觉和运动区域的激活程度更高，在属性列表任务中更频繁地报告视觉和运动特征，这表明听觉通道的丧失部分由视觉和运动信息对构成对象知识的重要性增加来补偿。因此，我们的结果表明，与听力参与者相比，耳聋者的概念处理更依赖于语言系统，并且视觉运动系统的贡献增强。
