The Brain Effective Connectivity of Chinese during Rhyming Task

PLoS One. 2016 Sep 1;11(9):e0162158. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0162158. eCollection 2016.

Abstract

With regard to brain language processing, the activation patterns have been well studied, and recently there are great interest in the connectivity models. The crucial brain areas for phonological processing involves left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG), left inferior parietal lobule (LIPL) and left posterior middle temporal gyrus (LpMTG). Specially in Chinese processing, the left middle frontal gyrus (LMFG) is considered as an essential region. However, the connectivity pattern among these brain areas is not well understood. In this study, a rhyming experiment of Chinese was conducted, and the Dynamic causal modeling (DCM) and the Bayesian model selection (BMS) were used to examine the interaction between brain regions and choose the best model for rhyming task of Chinese. By examining the interactions, it was found that LMFG exerted inhibitory modulation on LIPL and LIFG; the phonological processing enhanced the connection from LIPL to LIFG and LMFG, which suggested the important roles of these connections for the increased phonological load; And LpMTG modulated LIFG and LMFG negatively, and LIPL positively under rhyming judgment task.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Brain / diagnostic imaging
  • Brain / physiology*
  • China
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Language*
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging
  • Male
  • Task Performance and Analysis*
  • Young Adult

Grants and funding

This study was supported by the National Strategic Basic Research Program (“973” Program) of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (Grant No.: 2012CB720702). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.