A Practical Review of Functional MRI Anatomy of the Language and Motor Systems

Abstract

Functional MR imaging is being performed with increasing frequency in the typical neuroradiology practice; however, many readers of these studies have only a limited knowledge of the functional anatomy of the brain. This text will delineate the locations, anatomic boundaries, and functions of the cortical regions of the brain most commonly encountered in clinical practice---specifically, the regions involved in movement and language.

Differences in regional gray matter volume predict the extent to which openness influences judgments of beauty and pleasantness of interior architectural spaces

“…Importantly, the large cluster that was coincident with the PCC also overlapped with adjacent parietal regions in the PCL (BA5/6) that could be functionally involved in the observed pattern of covariation. Specifically, the PCL has been associated with motor and sensorimotor functions, 59,60 and it is possible that the evaluation of openness in interior spaces might be associated with an assessment of their degree of affordances for facilitating movement 61,62 . In combination, the association of the TP, PCC, and PCL with individual differences in beauty responsiveness suggests that processes related to affect, personally relevant semantic and episodic memory, and/or motor and sensorimotor processes could explain differences in the extent to which people's beauty evaluations are influenced by the openness of interior architectural spaces.…”

The utility of diffusion tractography for speech preservation in laser ablation of the dominant insula: illustrative case

“…The SLF III and AF play a major role in the dorsal language stream, and the IFOF is the major tract of the ventral language stream. 8,10 Although other cortical and subcortical areas are involved in language function, these two particular tracts are known to be of primary importance and should be protected during surgery or ablation. DTI tractography was used in our patient to visualize these two major tracts in preoperative planning and allow us to fully treat the left, language-dominant hemisphere and insular seizure onset zone while avoiding thermal damage to these tracts with spatial precision.…”

Combination of structural and functional connectivity explains unique variation in specific domains of cognitive function

“…In contrast, Retention and Retrieval, and Encoding have been associated with more localised neural regions and so performance on these forms of cognition may be more fully captured by functional connectivity alone. Our Retention and Retrieval component reflected language tasks, typically localised to left hemisphere's temporal regions and inferior frontal gyrus (Bookheimer, 2002;Hill et al, 2019). In addition, verbal and non-verbal sequence processing, such as required by list sorting and picture sequence memory, have been specifically localised to Broca's area (Fiebach & Schubotz, 2006;Sahin et al, 2009).…”