Publications from 2003

Booth JR, Burman DD, Meyer JR, Zhang L, Trommer B, Davenport N, Li W, Parrish TR, Gitelman DR & Mesulam MM (2003). Neural development of selective attention and response inhibition. NeuroImage, 20, 737-751. [pdf]

Brain activation differences between 12 children (9 to 12-year-olds) and 12 adults (20 to 30-year-olds) were examined on two cognitive tasks during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Spatial selective attention was measured with the visual search for a conjunction target (red triangle) in a field of distracters and response inhibition was measured with a go no-go task. There were small developmental differences in the selective attention task, with children showing greater activation than adults in the anterior cingulate and thalamus. There were large developmental differences in the response inhibition task, with children showing greater activation than adults in a fronto-striatal network including middle cingulate, medial frontal gyrus, medial aspects of bilateral superior frontal gyrus, and the caudate nucleus on the left. Children also showed greater bilateral activation for the response inhibition task in posterior cingulate, thalamus and the hippocampo-amygdaloid region. The extensive developmental differences on the response inhibition task are consistent with the prolonged maturation of the fronto-striatal network.

Booth JR, Burman DD, Meyer JR, Zhang L, Choy J, Gitelman DR, Parrish TR & Mesulam MM (2003). Modality-specific and -independent developmental differences in the neural substrate for lexical processing. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 16, 383-405. [pdf]

The neuroanatomy of developmental differences in lexical processing was examined with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in 15 adults and 15 children. We examined modality specific and modality independent (auditory and visual presentation) patterns of brain activation during spelling, rhyming and meaning judgment tasks. A direct comparison of the modalities revealed that adults showed a large area of activation in the fusiform gyrus for visual word forms and in the superior temporal gyrus for auditory word forms. In contrast, the modality comparison for children revealed no activation in the fusiform gyrus for visual word forms and modest activation in the superior temporal gyrus for auditory word forms. There were also modality independent developmental differences with adults showing more activation than children in the inferior frontal gyrus for the spelling, rhyming and meaning tasks. These results suggest that development is characterized by increasing involvement of the inferior frontal gyrus in lexical processing and by the specialization of unimodal regions for visual and auditory word forms.

Booth JR, Burman DD, Meyer JR, Gitelman DR, Parrish TB & Mesulam MM (2003). The relation between brain activation and lexical performance. Human Brain Mapping, 19, 155-169. [pdf]

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to determine whether performance on lexical tasks was correlated with cerebral activation patterns. We found that such relationships did exist and that their anatomical distribution reflected the neuro-cognitive processing routes required by the task. Better performance on intra-modal tasks (determining if visual words were spelled the same or if auditory words rhymed) was correlated with more activation in unimodal regions corresponding to the modality of sensory input, namely the fusiform gyrus (BA 37) for written words and the superior temporal gyrus (BA 22) for spoken words. Better performance in tasks requiring cross-modal conversions (determining if auditory words were spelled the same or if visual words rhymed), on the other hand, was correlated with more activation in posterior heteromodal regions, including the supramarginal gyrus (BA 40) and the angular gyrus (BA 39). Better performance in these cross-modal tasks was also correlated with greater activation in unimodal regions corresponding to the target modality of the conversion process (i.e. fusiform gyrus for auditory spelling and superior temporal gyrus for visual rhyming). In contrast, performance on the auditory spelling task was inversely correlated with activation in the superior temporal gyrus possibly reflecting a greater emphasis on the properties of the perceptual input rather than on the relevant transmodal conversions.