Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Comprehensive Center for Pediatrics, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Division of Neuroradiology and Muscoskeletal Radiology, Department of Biomedical Imaging and Image-guided Therapy, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Commun Biol. 2023 Jan 27;6(1):109. doi: 10.1038/s42003-023-04503-z.
In most humans, the superior temporal sulcus (STS) shows a rightward depth asymmetry. This asymmetry can not only be observed in adults, but is already recognizable in the fetal brain. As the STS lies adjacent to brain areas important for language, STS depth asymmetry may represent an anatomical marker for language abilities. This study investigated the prognostic value of STS depth asymmetry in healthy fetuses for later language abilities, language localization, and language-related white matter tracts. Less right lateralization of the fetal STS depth was significantly associated with better verbal abilities, with fetal STS depth asymmetry explaining more than 40% of variance in verbal skills 6-13 years later. Furthermore, less right fetal STS depth asymmetry correlated with increased left language localization during childhood. We hypothesize that earlier and/or more localized fetal development of the left temporal cortex is accompanied by an earlier development of the left STS and is favorable for early language learning. If the findings of this pilot study hold true in larger samples of healthy children and in different clinical populations, fetal STS asymmetry has the potential to become a diagnostic biomarker of the maturity and integrity of neural correlates of language.
在大多数人中，颞上沟（STS）表现出右向深度不对称。这种不对称不仅可以在成年人中观察到，而且在胎儿大脑中已经可以识别。由于 STS 位于与语言重要的脑区相邻，因此 STS 深度不对称可能代表语言能力的解剖学标志物。本研究调查了健康胎儿中 STS 深度不对称对以后语言能力、语言定位和语言相关白质束的预后价值。胎儿 STS 深度的右偏侧化程度较低与更好的语言能力显著相关，6-13 年后，胎儿 STS 深度不对称解释了超过 40%的语言技能方差。此外，胎儿 STS 深度不对称程度较低与儿童期左语言定位增加相关。我们假设，左侧颞叶皮层更早和/或更局部化的胎儿发育伴随着左侧 STS 的更早发育，这有利于早期语言学习。如果这项初步研究的结果在更大的健康儿童样本和不同的临床人群中成立，那么胎儿 STS 不对称有可能成为语言神经相关成熟和完整性的诊断生物标志物。
