Clinical standardized fMRI reveals altered language lateralization in brain tumor patients
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Brain tumors affecting language-relevant areas may influence language lateralization. The purpose of this study was to systematically investigate language lateralization in brain tumor patients using clinical language fMRI, comparing the results with a group of healthy volunt...
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article (Journal) |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2012
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| In: |
American journal of neuroradiology
Year: 2012, Volume: 33, Issue: 11, Pages: 2151-2157 |
| ISSN: | 1936-959X |
| DOI: | 10.3174/ajnr.A3137 |
| Online Access: | Verlag, Volltext: http://dx.doi.org/10.3174/ajnr.A3137 Verlag, Volltext: http://www.ajnr.org/content/early/2012/05/17/ajnr.A3137 
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| Author Notes: | S. Partovi, B. Jacobi, N. Rapps, L. Zipp, S. Karimi, F. Rengier, J. K. Lyo, C. Stippich |
| Summary: | BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Brain tumors affecting language-relevant areas may influence language lateralization. The purpose of this study was to systematically investigate language lateralization in brain tumor patients using clinical language fMRI, comparing the results with a group of healthy volunteers. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Fifty-seven strictly right-handed patients with left-hemispheric-space intracranial masses (mainly neoplastic) affecting either the Broca area (n = 19) or Wernicke area (n = 38) were prospectively enrolled in this study. Fourteen healthy volunteers served as a control group. Standardized clinical language fMRI, using visually triggered sentence- and word-generation paradigms, was performed on a 1.5T MR scanner. Semiautomated analyses of all functional data were conducted on an individual basis using BrainVoyager. A regional lateralization index was calculated for Broca and Wernicke areas separately versus their corresponding right-hemisphere homologs. RESULTS: In masses affecting the Broca area, a significant decrease in the lateralization index was found when performing word generation (P = .0017), whereas when applying sentence generation, the decrease did not reach statistical significance (P = .851). Masses affecting the Wernicke area induced a significant decrease of the lateralization index when performing sentence generation (P = .0007), whereas when applying word generation, the decrease was not statistically significant (P = .310). CONCLUSIONS: Clinical language fMRI was feasible for patients with brain tumors and provided relevant presurgical information by localizing essential language areas and determining language dominance. A significant effect of the brain masses on language lateralization was observed, with a shift toward the contralesional, nondominant hemisphere. This may reflect compensatory mechanisms of the brain to maintain communicative abilities. |
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| Item Description: | Published online December 13, 2012 Gesehen am 25.06.2018 |
| Physical Description: | Online Resource |
| ISSN: | 1936-959X |
| DOI: | 10.3174/ajnr.A3137 |