Left middle temporal gyrus activation during a phonemic discrimination task

Self-compassion, self-referential caudate circuitry, and adolescent suicide ideation

Suicide is the second leading cause of death in youth, and depression is a strong proximal predictor of adolescent suicide. It is important to identify psychological factors that may protect against suicide ideation in depressed adolescents. Self-compassion may be such a factor. Converging evidence indicates the inverse association between self-compassion and suicide ideation, but the neural mechanisms underlying their link remain unknown. Because self-referential caudate activity is associated with both self-compassion and suicide ideation, its functional connectivity might explain their relationship. In this study, we examined the relationship between self-compassion and caudate functional connectivity during self-appraisals, a typical self-referential paradigm, and their associations with suicide ideation in both depressed and healthy youth. In the scanner, 79 depressed youth and 36 healthy controls evaluated, from various perspectives, whether phrases they heard were self-descriptive. Self-compassion and suicide ideation were rated with self-report and interview-based measures. We found that self-compassion was associated with stronger left caudate functional connectivity with bilateral posterior superior temporal sulcus/temporoparietal junction, the left middle temporal gyrus (MTG), and the left middle occipital gyrus during positive versus negative self-appraisals. Stronger left caudate connectivity with the left MTG explained the association between higher self-compassion and lower suicide ideation, even controlling for non-suicide ideation depression severity, anxiety severity, and non-suicidal self-injurious behavior. The findings suggest that the left caudate to MTG connectivity during positive versus negative self-referential processing could be a biomarker to be targeted by neural stimulation interventions for reducing suicide ideation in depressed youth, combined with self-compassion interventions.

Impact of ASL Exposure on Spoken Phonemic Discrimination in Adult CI Users: A Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Study

We examined the impact of exposure to a signed language (American Sign Language, or ASL) at different ages on the neural systems that support spoken language phonemic discrimination in deaf individuals with cochlear implants (CIs). Deaf CI users (N = 18, age = 18-24 yrs) who were exposed to a signed language at different ages and hearing individuals (N = 18, age = 18-21 yrs) completed a phonemic discrimination task in a spoken native (English) and non-native (Hindi) language while undergoing functional near-infrared spectroscopy neuroimaging. Behaviorally, deaf CI users who received a CI early versus later in life showed better English phonemic discrimination, albeit phonemic discrimination was poor relative to hearing individuals. Importantly, the age of exposure to ASL was not related to phonemic discrimination. Neurally, early-life language exposure, irrespective of modality, was associated with greater neural activation of left-hemisphere language areas critically involved in phonological processing during the phonemic discrimination task in deaf CI users. In particular, early exposure to ASL was associated with increased activation in the left hemisphere's classic language regions for native versus non-native language phonemic contrasts for deaf CI users who received a CI later in life. For deaf CI users who received a CI early in life, the age of exposure to ASL was not related to neural activation during phonemic discrimination. Together, the findings suggest that early signed language exposure does not negatively impact spoken language processing in deaf CI users, but may instead potentially offset the negative effects of language deprivation that deaf children without any signed language exposure experience prior to implantation. This empirical evidence aligns with and lends support to recent perspectives regarding the impact of ASL exposure in the context of CI usage.

Bridging phenomenology and neural mechanisms of inner speech: ALE meta-analysis on egocentricity and spontaneity in a dual-mechanistic framework

The neural mechanisms of inner speech remain unclear despite its importance in a variety of cognitive processes and its implication in aberrant perceptions such as auditory verbal hallucinations. Previous research has proposed a corollary discharge model in which inner speech is a truncated form of overt speech, relying on speech production-related regions (e.g. left inferior frontal gyrus). This model does not fully capture the diverse phenomenology of inner speech and recent research suggesting alternative perception-related mechanisms of generation. Therefore, we present and test a framework in which inner speech can be generated by two separate mechanisms, depending on its phenomenological qualities: a corollary discharge mechanism relying on speech production regions and a perceptual simulation mechanism within speech perceptual regions. The results of the activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis examining inner speech studies support the idea that varieties of inner speech recruit different neural mechanisms.

Relationship among Connectivity of the Frontal Aslant Tract, Executive Functions, and Speech and Language Impairment in Children with Childhood Apraxia of Speech

Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a subtype of motor speech disorder usually co-occurring with language impairment. A supramodal processing difficulty, involving executive functions (EFs), might contribute to the cognitive endophenotypes and behavioral manifestations. The present study aimed to profile the EFs in CAS, investigating the relationship between EFs, speech and language severity, and the connectivity of the frontal aslant tract (FAT), a white matter tract involved in both speech and EFs. A total of 30 preschool children with CAS underwent speech, language, and EF assessments and brain MRIs. Their FAT connectivity metrics were compared to those of 30 children without other neurodevelopmental disorders (NoNDs), who also underwent brain MRIs. Alterations in some basic EF components were found. Inhibition and working memory correlated with speech and language severity. Compared to NoND children, a weak, significant reduction in fractional anisotropy (FA) in the left presupplementary motor area (preSMA) FAT component was found. Only speech severity correlated and predicted FA values along with the FAT in both of its components, and visual-spatial working memory moderated the relationship between speech severity and FA in the left SMA. Our study supports the conceptualization of a composite and complex picture of CAS, not limited to the speech core deficit, but also involving high-order cognitive skills.

Altered resting cerebral blood flow specific to patients with diabetic retinopathy revealed by arterial spin labeling perfusion magnetic resonance imaging

BACKGROUND

Previous neuroimaging studies have shown that patients with diabetic retinopathy (DR) were accompanied by abnormalities in cerebral functional and structural architecture, whereas the resting cerebral blood flow (CBF) alterations in patients with DR are not well understood.

PURPOSE

To explore CBF alterations in patients with DR using pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling (pCASL) imaging.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

Thirty-one individuals with DR (15 men, 16 women; mean age = 53.38 ± 9.12 years) and 33 healthy controls (HC) (12 men, 21 women; mean age = 51.61 ± 9.84 years) closely matched for age, sex, and education, underwent pCASL imaging scans. Two-sample T test was conducted to compare different CBF values between two groups.

RESULTS

Patients with DR exhibited significantly increased CBF values in the left middle temporal gyrus (Brodmann's area, BA 22) and the bilateral supplementary motor area (BA3) and decreased CBF values in the bilateral calcarine (BA17,18) and bilateral caudate relative to HC group (two-tailed, voxel level at P < 0.01, Gaussian random field (GRF), cluster level at P < 0.05). Moreover, the HbA1c (%) level showed a positive correlation with CBF values in the bilateral caudate (r = 0.473, P = 0.007) in patients with DR.

CONCLUSION

Our results highlighted that patients with DR had abnormal CBF values in the visual cortices, caudate, middle temporal gyrus, and supplementary motor area, which might reflect vision and sensorimotor and cognition dysfunction in patients with DR. These findings might help us to understanding the neural mechanism of patients with DR.

The neural basis of complex audiovisual objects maintenances in working memory

Working memory research has primarily concentrated on studying our senses separately; the neural basis of maintaining information from multiple sensory modalities in working memory has been not well elucidated. It is debated whether multisensory information is maintained in the form of modality-specific representations or amodal representations. The present study investigated what brain regions were engaged in both types of complex audiovisual objects maintenances (semantically congruent and incongruent) using functional magnetic resonance imaging and conjunction analysis, and examined in which form to maintain multisensory objects information in working memory. The conjunction analysis showed that there was common brain regions activation involving left parietal cortex (e.g., left angular gyrus, supramarginal gyrus, and precuneus) while maintaining semantically congruent audiovisual object, whereas the common brain regions activation including the bilateral angular, left superior parietal lobule, and left middle temporal gyrus was found during maintaining semantically incongruent audiovisual objects. Importantly, the shared conjoint brain regions activation consists of bilateral angular gyrus and left middle frontal gyrus was observed while maintaining both types of semantically congruent and incongruent complex audiovisual objects. These brain regions may play different role while maintaining these complex multisensory objects, such as supramodel storage per se and intentional attention. The findings of the present studymight support the amodal view that working memory has a central storage system to maintain multisensory information from different sensory inputs.

Statistical Significance Assessment of Phase Synchrony in the Presence of Background Couplings: An ECoG Study

Statistical significance testing is a necessary step in connectivity analysis. Several statistical test methods have been employed to assess the significance of functional connectivity, but the performance of these methods has not been thoroughly evaluated. In addition, the effects of the intrinsic brain connectivity and background couplings on performance of statistical test methods in task-based studies have not been investigated yet. The background couplings may exist independent of cognitive state and can be observed on both pre- and post-stimulus time intervals. The background couplings may be falsely detected by a statistical test as task-related connections, which can mislead interpretations of the task-related functional networks. The aim of this study was to investigate the relative performance of four commonly used non-parametric statistical test methods-surrogate, demeaned surrogate, bootstrap resampling, and Monte Carlo permutation methods-in the presence of background couplings and noise, with different signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). Using simulated electrocorticographic (ECoG) datasets and phase locking value (PLV) as a measure of functional connectivity, we evaluated the performances of the statistical test methods utilizing sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and receiver operating curve (ROC) analysis. Furthermore, we calculated optimal p values for each statistical test method using the ROC analysis, and found that the optimal p values were increased by decreasing the SNR. We also found that the optimal p value of the bootstrap resampling was greater than that of other methods. Our results from the simulation datasets and a real ECoG dataset, as an illustrative case report, revealed that the bootstrap resampling is the most efficient non-parametric statistical test for identifying the significant PLV of ECoG data, especially in the presence of background couplings.

Gender incongruence and the brain - Behavioral and neural correlates of voice gender perception in transgender people

The phenomenon of gender incongruence is hypothesized to arise from a discrepant sexual development of the brain and the genitals, contingent on genetic and hormonal mechanisms. We aimed at visualizing transgender identity on a neurobiological level, assuming a higher functional similarity to individuals of the aspired rather than assigned sex. Implementing a gender perception paradigm featuring male and female voice stimuli, behavioral and functional imaging data of transmen were compared to men and women, and to transwomen, respectively. Men had decreased activation in response to voices of the other sex in regions across the frontoparietal and insular cortex, while the activation patterns of women and transmen were characterized by little or no differentiation between male and female voices. Further, transmen had a comparatively high discrimination performance for ambiguous male voices, possibly reflecting a high sensitivity for voices of the aspired sex. Comparing transmen and transwomen yielded only few differences in the processing of male compared to female voices. In the insula, we observed a pattern similar to that of men and women, the neural responses of the transgender group being in accordance with their gender identity rather than assigned sex. Notwithstanding the similarities found dependent on biological sex, the findings support the hypothesis of gender incongruence being a condition in which neural processing modes are partly incongruent with one's assigned sex.

Neuroanatomical correlates of childhood apraxia of speech: A connectomic approach

Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a paediatric speech sound disorder in which precision and consistency of speech movements are impaired. Most children with idiopathic CAS have normal structural brain MRI. We hypothesize that children with CAS have altered structural connectivity in speech/language networks compared to controls and that these altered connections are related to functional speech/language measures.

Whole brain probabilistic tractography, using constrained spherical deconvolution, was performed for connectome generation in 17 children with CAS and 10 age-matched controls. Fractional anisotropy (FA) was used as a measure of connectivity and the connections with altered FA between CAS and controls were identified. Further, the relationship between altered FA and speech/language scores was determined.

Three intra-hemispheric/interhemispheric subnetworks showed reduction of FA in CAS compared to controls, including left inferior (opercular part) and superior (dorsolateral, medial and orbital part) frontal gyrus, left superior and middle temporal gyrus and left post-central gyrus (subnetwork 1); right supplementary motor area, left middle and inferior (orbital part) frontal gyrus, left precuneus and cuneus, right superior occipital gyrus and right cerebellum (subnetwork 2); right angular gyrus, right superior temporal gyrus and right inferior occipital gyrus (subnetwork 3). Reduced FA of some connections correlated with diadochokinesis, oromotor skills, expressive grammar and poor lexical production in CAS.

These findings provide evidence of structural connectivity anomalies in children with CAS across specific brain regions involved in speech/language function. We propose altered connectivity as a possible epiphenomenon of complex pathogenic mechanisms in CAS which need further investigation.

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Connectivity anomalies are present in children with Childhood Apraxia of Speech.

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Connectivity anomalies include brain regions involved in speech/language function.

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Altered connectivity correlates with a measure of speech/language dysfunction.

Language Mapping Using fMRI and Direct Cortical Stimulation for Brain Tumor Surgery: The Good, the Bad, and the Questionable

Language functional magnetic resonance imaging for neurosurgical planning is a useful but nuanced technique. Consideration of primary and secondary language anatomy, task selection, and data analysis choices all impact interpretation. In the following chapter, we consider practical considerations and nuances alike for language functional magnetic resonance imaging in the support of and comparison with the neurosurgical gold standard, direct cortical stimulation. Pitfalls and limitations are discussed.

A Map for Social Navigation in the Human Brain

Deciphering the neural mechanisms of social behavior has propelled the growth of social neuroscience. The exact computations of the social brain, however, remain elusive. Here we investigated how the human brain tracks ongoing changes in social relationships using functional neuroimaging. Participants were lead characters in a role-playing game in which they were to find a new home and a job through interactions with virtual cartoon characters. We found that a two-dimensional geometric model of social relationships, a "social space" framed by power and affiliation, predicted hippocampal activity. Moreover, participants who reported better social skills showed stronger covariance between hippocampal activity and "movement" through "social space." The results suggest that the hippocampus is crucial for social cognition, and imply that beyond framing physical locations, the hippocampus computes a more general, inclusive, abstract, and multidimensional cognitive map consistent with its role in episodic memory.

Putative mechanisms mediating tolerance for audiovisual stimulus onset asynchrony

Audiovisual (AV) speech perception is robust to temporal asynchronies between visual and auditory stimuli. We investigated the neural mechanisms that facilitate tolerance for audiovisual stimulus onset asynchrony (AVOA) with EEG. Individuals were presented with AV words that were asynchronous in onsets of voice and mouth movement and judged whether they were synchronous or not. Behaviorally, individuals tolerated (perceived as synchronous) longer AVOAs when mouth movement preceded the speech (V-A) stimuli than when the speech preceded mouth movement (A-V). Neurophysiologically, the P1-N1-P2 auditory evoked potentials (AEPs), time-locked to sound onsets and known to arise in and surrounding the primary auditory cortex (PAC), were smaller for the in-sync than the out-of-sync percepts. Spectral power of oscillatory activity in the beta band (14–30 Hz) following the AEPs was larger during the in-sync than out-of-sync perception for both A-V and V-A conditions. However, alpha power (8–14 Hz), also following AEPs, was larger for the in-sync than out-of-sync percepts only in the V-A condition. These results demonstrate that AVOA tolerance is enhanced by inhibiting low-level auditory activity (e.g., AEPs representing generators in and surrounding PAC) that code for acoustic onsets. By reducing sensitivity to acoustic onsets, visual-to-auditory onset mapping is weakened, allowing for greater AVOA tolerance. In contrast, beta and alpha results suggest the involvement of higher-level neural processes that may code for language cues (phonetic, lexical), selective attention, and binding of AV percepts, allowing for wider neural windows of temporal integration, i.e., greater AVOA tolerance.

Independent and collaborative contributions of the cerebral hemispheres to emotional processing

Presented is a model suggesting that the right hemisphere (RH) directly mediates the identification and comprehension of positive and negative emotional stimuli, whereas the left hemisphere (LH) contributes to higher level processing of emotional information that has been shared via the corpus callosum. RH subcortical connections provide initial processing of emotional stimuli, and their innervation to cortical structures provides a secondary pathway by which the hemispheres process emotional information more fully. It is suggested that the LH contribution to emotion processing is in emotional regulation, social well-being, and adaptation, and transforming the RH emotional experience into propositional and verbal codes. Lastly, it is proposed that the LH has little ability at the level of emotion identification, having a default positive bias and no ability to identify a stimulus as negative. Instead, the LH must rely on the transfer of emotional information from the RH to engage higher-order emotional processing. As such, either hemisphere can identify positive emotions, but they must collaborate for complete processing of negative emotions. Evidence presented draws from behavioral, neurological, and clinical research, including discussions of subcortical and cortical pathways, callosal agenesis, commissurotomy, emotion regulation, mood disorders, interpersonal interaction, language, and handedness. Directions for future research are offered.

Functional overlap between regions involved in speech perception and in monitoring one's own voice during speech production

The fluency and the reliability of speech production suggest a mechanism that links motor commands and sensory feedback. Here, we examined the neural organization supporting such links by using fMRI to identify regions in which activity during speech production is modulated according to whether auditory feedback matches the predicted outcome or not and by examining the overlap with the network recruited during passive listening to speech sounds. We used real-time signal processing to compare brain activity when participants whispered a consonant-vowel-consonant word ("Ted") and either heard this clearly or heard voice-gated masking noise. We compared this to when they listened to yoked stimuli (identical recordings of "Ted" or noise) without speaking. Activity along the STS and superior temporal gyrus bilaterally was significantly greater if the auditory stimulus was (a) processed as the auditory concomitant of speaking and (b) did not match the predicted outcome (noise). The network exhibiting this Feedback Type x Production/Perception interaction includes a superior temporal gyrus/middle temporal gyrus region that is activated more when listening to speech than to noise. This is consistent with speech production and speech perception being linked in a control system that predicts the sensory outcome of speech acts and that processes an error signal in speech-sensitive regions when this and the sensory data do not match.

Phonological repetition-suppression in bilateral superior temporal sulci

Evidence has accumulated that posterior superior temporal sulcus (STS) is critically involved in phonological processing during speech perception, although there are conflicting accounts regarding the degree of lateralization. The current fMRI experiment aimed to identify phonological processing during speech perception through repetition-suppression effects. Repetition-suppression occurs when brain activity decreases from repetitive presentation of stimulus characteristics, in regions of cortex that process those characteristics. We manipulated the degree of phonological repetition among words in short lists to obtain systematic decreases in brain response, indicative of phonological processing. The fMRI experiment presented seventeen participants with recorded wordlists, of low, medium, or high phonological repetition, defined by how many phonemes were shared among words. Bilaterally, middle STS demonstrated activity differences consistent with our prediction of repetition-suppression, as responses decreased systematically with each increase in phonological repetition. Phonological repetition-suppression in bilateral STS converges with neuroimaging evidence for phonological processing, and word deafness resulting from bilateral superior temporal lesions.

Illusory Vowels Resulting from Perceptual Continuity: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to study the neural processing of vowels whose perception depends on the continuity illusion. Participants heard sequences of two-formant vowels under a number of listening conditions. In the “vowel conditions,” both formants were always present simultaneously and the stimuli were perceived as speech-like. Contrasted with a range of nonspeech sounds, these vowels elicited activity in the posterior middle temporal gyrus (MTG) and superior temporal sulcus (STS). When the two formants alternated in time, the “speech-likeness” of the sounds was reduced. It could be partially restored by filling the silent gaps in each formant with bands of noise (the “Illusion” condition) because the noise induced an illusion of continuity in each formant region, causing the two formants to be perceived as simultaneous. However, this manipulation was only effective at low formant-to-noise ratios (FNRs). When the FNR was increased, the illusion broke down (the “illusion-break” condition). Activation in vowel-sensitive regions of the MTG was greater in the illusion than in the illusion-break condition, consistent with the perception of Illusion stimuli as vowels. Activity in Heschl's gyri (HG), the approximate location of the primary auditory cortex, showed the opposite pattern, and may depend instead on the number of perceptual onsets in a sound. Our results demonstrate that speech-sensitive regions of the MTG are sensitive not to the physical characteristics of the stimulus but to the perception of the stimulus as speech, and also provide an anatomically distinct, objective physiological correlate of the continuity illusion in human listeners.

Supramodal language comprehension: Role of the left temporal lobe for listening and reading

In this fMRI study, we aimed at identifying the cortical areas engaged in supramodal processing of language comprehension. BOLD changes were recorded in 19 healthy right-handed subjects reading or listening to a story. During the visual control tasks the volunteers attended to a series of continuous letterstrings or a fixation cross, while during the acoustic control tasks either a reversed text or white noise were presented. The conjunction of the visual and acoustic story processing yielded left-dominant activations which in comparison to language-like stimuli focused to the left middle temporal gyrus as well as to the supramarginal gyrus. We conclude that the core structure representing supramodal language comprehension is the left temporal lobe at both banks of the superior temporal sulcus.

Identification of lexical-phonological networks in the superior temporal sulcus using functional magnetic resonance imaging

General agreement exists that dorsal aspects of the temporal lobe support the perception of speech but there is less agreement regarding the mapping between levels of speech processing and neural regions within the dorsal temporal lobe. The present experiment sought to identify temporal lobe regions that support one such level, namely, lexical-phonological representation/processing. To do this, we manipulated phonological neighborhood density, a variable that affects processing within lexical-phonological networks. In a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment, 10 participants listened to blocks of either high-density or low-density words. High-density words produced significantly more activation in the posterior half of the superior temporal sulcus bilaterally, suggesting that these regions are involved in lexical-phonological processing networks.

Hemispheric difference in activation patterns of human auditory-associated cortex: an FMRI study

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate interhemispheric differences in activation patterns of the auditory-associated cortex elicited by a series of sounds. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was performed while different sounds were presented binaurally to 10 healthy subjects with normal hearing. Characteristic activation patterns were elicited although variability was shown between subjects. The activation number was significantly higher on the right than on the left side for non-speech (but not for speech) stimulations. As stimulation increased in complexity (from a pure tone to white noise to ocean wave sounds to classical music), the activation pattern of the superior temporal lobe became more pronounced in both hemispheres while that of the auditory cortex tended to become more sustained and concentrated on the right rather than on the left side. No hemispheric differences in activation pattern were seen in response to speech.

Sound blending in the brain: a functional magnetic resonance imaging investigation

The presence of high levels of background noise is a serious concern for functional magnetic resonance imaging studies of phonological processing using conventional methods. As a result, many such studies have focused on phonological units larger than phonemes (e.g. syllables) or used stimuli presented in the visual (e.g. printed letters) rather than the auditory domain. We used a recently developed functional magnetic resonance imaging method to present spoken stimuli without the scanner's background noise. Young adult participants mentally blended phonemes in a series (e.g. /b/, /ae/, /t/), counted the number of discrete tones, or rested. Relative to tone counting, sound blending elicited activation in bilateral temporal and prefrontal cortices with left asymmetry. Activation within the dorsoposterior inferior frontal gyrus, a subregion of Broca's area, was negatively correlated with sound-blending accuracy. Our findings are consistent with prior studies ascribing a role of general sequencing, motor and articulatory programming, and vocal or subvocal articulatory rehearsal to this brain region.

Evidence for rapid auditory perception as the foundation of speech processing: a sparse temporal sampling fMRI study

We examined the processing of verbal and nonverbal auditory stimuli using an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study to reveal the neural underpinnings of rapid temporal information processing and it's relevance during speech perception. In the context of a clustered sparse-temporal fMRI data collection eight right-handed native German speakers performed: (i) an auditory gap detection task; and (ii) a CV syllable discrimination task. A tone perception task served as a nontemporal control condition. Here we aimed to research to what extent the left hemisphere preferentially processes linguistically relevant temporal information available in speech and nonspeech stimuli. Furthermore, we sought to find out as to whether a left hemisphere's preference for linguistically relevant temporal information is specifically constrained to verbal utterances or if nonlinguistic temporal information may also activate these areas. We collected haemodynamic responses from three time points of acquisition (TPA) with varying temporal distance from stimulus onset to gain an insight on the time course of auditory processing. Results show exclusively left-sided activations of primary and secondary auditory cortex associated with the perception of rapid temporal information. Furthermore, the data shows an overlap of activations evoked by nonspeech sounds and speech stimuli within primary and secondary auditory cortex of the left hemisphere. The present data clearly support the assumption of a shared neural network for rapid temporal information processing within the auditory domain for both speech and nonspeech signals situated in left superior temporal areas.

Effects of brain-lesion size and location on temporal-order judgment

We assessed the effect of size and localization of a brain lesion on patients' abilities to perceive the temporal order of two acoustic stimuli. In those patients who had performed with impaired order thresholds, local overlaps of lesions as analyzed with CT were found in specific left-hemispheric regions of the temporal and parietal lobe. However, a moderate association of lesion size and temporal-order threshold was found among all brain-injured patients (n = 30), a correlation that was most pronounced in patients with right-hemispheric lesions. This non-specific effect of lesion size has to be discussed critically with respect to behavioral findings of an association between temporal-processing abilities and language competence.