TY - JOUR
T1 - Brain representation of phonological processing in Italian
T2 - Individual variability and behavioural correlates
AU - Pecini, Chiara
AU - Biagi, L.
AU - Guzzetta, A.
AU - Montanaro, D.
AU - Brizzolara, D.
AU - Cipriani, P.
AU - Chilosi, A.
AU - Tosetti, M.
AU - Cioni, G.
PY - 2008/9
Y1 - 2008/9
N2 - Neuroimaging literature on phonological processing during reading lacks of studies taking into account orthographic differences across languages and behavioural variability across subjects. The present study aimed at investigating brain representation of phonological processing in reading Italian, a language with regular orthography, with particular regard to inter-individual variability and brain-behavioural correlates. Ten Italian adults performed a rhyme generation and a rhyme judgment task during fMRI acquisition and were tested with behavioural measures of phonological processing. Results for both tasks showed activations of the left Inferior Frontal Gyrus and Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex, likely underlying output sublexical strategies, for all or most of the subjects, while a minority of subjects activated the Superior Temporal Sulcus and the Temporo-Parietal-Occipital Junction. These results suggest that phonological processing of written Italian is based on the prevalent use of frontal structures. However, it is of interest that the activation of the Superior Temporal Sulcus, involved in phonological input, was associated to better behavioural performances in tasks of phonological processing. Our findings may contribute to understand neural correlates of phonological processing of languages with regular orthography.
AB - Neuroimaging literature on phonological processing during reading lacks of studies taking into account orthographic differences across languages and behavioural variability across subjects. The present study aimed at investigating brain representation of phonological processing in reading Italian, a language with regular orthography, with particular regard to inter-individual variability and brain-behavioural correlates. Ten Italian adults performed a rhyme generation and a rhyme judgment task during fMRI acquisition and were tested with behavioural measures of phonological processing. Results for both tasks showed activations of the left Inferior Frontal Gyrus and Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex, likely underlying output sublexical strategies, for all or most of the subjects, while a minority of subjects activated the Superior Temporal Sulcus and the Temporo-Parietal-Occipital Junction. These results suggest that phonological processing of written Italian is based on the prevalent use of frontal structures. However, it is of interest that the activation of the Superior Temporal Sulcus, involved in phonological input, was associated to better behavioural performances in tasks of phonological processing. Our findings may contribute to understand neural correlates of phonological processing of languages with regular orthography.
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M3 - Article
C2 - 19378881
AN - SCOPUS:64649106121
VL - 146
SP - 189
EP - 203
JO - Archives Italiennes de Biologie
JF - Archives Italiennes de Biologie
SN - 0003-9829
IS - 3-4
ER -