ICube Laboratory (UMR 7357), University of Strasbourg and CNRS, Strasbourg, France.
Geriatrics Day Hospital and Neuropsychology Unit, Geriatrics Department and Neurology Service, Memory Resources and Research Centre (CM2R), University Hospital of Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France.
Brain Imaging Behav. 2021 Oct;15(5):2367-2376. doi: 10.1007/s11682-020-00432-1. Epub 2021 Jan 7.
According to the Construction-Integration model (Kintsch 1988; Kintsch 1998), two forms of representation are activated during the reading and the comprehension of a text: 1) the text base, which includes semantic propositions and 2) the situation model, corresponding to the integration of the information contained in the text to the memories and knowledge of the reader. Functional neuroimaging studies in healthy subjects have shown that the text base is underpinned by frontal regions and lateral temporal regions whereas the situation model would rather depend on the posterior cingulate cortex, the precuneus and other regions depending on the dimension studied. However, the brain regions highlighted so far were only involved in comprehension and not necessary for this cognitive ability. For the first time, we explored the brain structures necessary to understand texts using a combined VBM/DTI approach in neuropsychological patients with whom we obtained comprehension scores (text base and situation model) after the reading of narrative texts. To our great surprise and contrary to our hypotheses, which were based on the results of functional neuroimaging studies, our own results show that it is the hippocampal region that is necessary to activate and memorize/remember the text base and the situation model. The highlighting of a link between the integrity of a portion of the uncinate fasciculus which is well known to play a role in semantic processing and the performance scores of the text base suggests that the hippocampal region is necessary not only for the retrieval of the text base and of the situation model thanks to episodic memory, but also for the activation of the text base during the reading and the comprehension of a text.
根据建构整合模型（Kintsch 1988；Kintsch 1998），在阅读和理解文本的过程中会激活两种表示形式：1）文本基础，包括语义命题；2）情境模型，对应于将文本中包含的信息整合到读者的记忆和知识中。对健康受试者的功能神经影像学研究表明，文本基础由额叶区域和外侧颞叶区域支撑，而情境模型则更依赖于后扣带皮层、楔前叶和其他依赖于所研究维度的区域。然而，到目前为止，所强调的大脑区域仅涉及理解，而不是理解这种认知能力所必需的。我们首次使用 VBM/DTI 联合方法在神经心理患者中探索理解文本所需的大脑结构，这些患者在阅读叙事文本后，我们获得了他们的理解分数（文本基础和情境模型）。令我们非常惊讶的是，与我们基于功能神经影像学研究结果的假设相反，我们自己的结果表明，激活和记忆/记住文本基础和情境模型所必需的是海马区域。突出钩束完整性与文本基础表现分数之间的联系，该钩束众所周知在语义处理中起作用，这表明海马区域不仅对于基于情景记忆的文本基础和情境模型的检索是必需的，而且对于在阅读和理解文本时激活文本基础也是必需的。
