Speech-like cerebral activity in profoundly deaf people processing signed languages: implications for the neural basis of human language.

ABSTRACT: For more than a century we have understood that our brain's left hemisphere is the primary site for processing language, yet why this is so has remained more elusive. Using positron emission tomography, we report cerebral blood flow activity in profoundly deaf signers processing specific aspects of sign language in key brain sites widely assumed to be unimodal speech or sound processing areas: the left inferior frontal cortex when signers produced meaningful signs, and the planum temporale bilaterally when they viewed signs or meaningless parts of signs (sign-phonetic and syllabic units). Contrary to prevailing wisdom, the planum temporale may not be exclusively dedicated to processing speech sounds, but may be specialized for processing more abstract properties essential to language that

SUBMITTER: Petitto LA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC17683 | biostudies-literature | 2000 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature