Cited by 453Neurobiology of Language and BilingualismReading and Literacy DevelopmentLanguage Development and Disorders

Sequential Processing of Lexical, Grammatical, and Phonological Information Within Broca’s Area

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Sahin, Ned T., Pinker, Steven, Cash, Sydney S., Schomer, Donald, Halgren, Eric·2009·Science

Abstract

Seeing the Brain's One, Two, Three: Taking advantage of the rare opportunity to record neuronal activity in the human brain using intracranial electrodes, Sahin et al. (p. 445 ; see the Perspective by Hagoort and Levelt ) document the spatial and temporal pattern of neuronal populations within Broca's area as patients thought of a single word, changed its tense (for verbs) or number (for nouns), and articulated the word silently. For these three stages, they detected activity at 200, 320, and 450 milliseconds, moving in a caudal to rostral direction. These data fit neatly within the roughly 600 milliseconds required for the onset of speech and map the distinct neural computations within an area of the brain, known for almost a century and a half, as important for the production of language.

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  • The main aim of such studies is to learn how the activity of neuronal groups relates to sensation, behavior and cognition.

    “The primary goal of such studies is to understand how the activities of groups of neurons are related to sensation, behavior and cognition [14, 117].”

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  1. [12]Broca P Bulletin de la Société Anatomique 6 330 1861
  2. [31]This component may approximate the P600 component often recorded from the scalp (Friederici AD Clin Neurosci 4 64 1997 9059755), but comparisons are difficult because the P600 is generally elicited by errors, in comprehension rather than production experiments.

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Authors
Sahin, N. T., Pinker, S., Cash, S. S., Schomer, D., & Halgren, E.
Affiliations
  • Harvard University (US)
  • Massachusetts General Hospital (US)
  • Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (US)
  • University of California San Diego (US)
Corresponding author
Sahin, Ned T.
Venue
Science
Published
2009-10-16
Volume
326
Issue
5951
Pages
445-449
ISSN
  • 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
  • 1095-9203
OpenAlex
W2043247889
Cited by
452
References
32
Citations by year
2026: 13 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 15 · 2022: 18 · 2021: 29 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 22 · 2018: 15 · 2017: 23 · 2016: 32 · 2015: 26 · 2014: 71 · 2013: 30 · 2012: 38
FWCI
17.48
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Science (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
  • Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) (acceptedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institute of Mental Health (T32MH070328)
  • National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NS-44623, NS 18741, R01NS044623, R01NS018741)
  • National Center for Research Resources (P41-RR-14075, P41RR014075)
  • Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD18381, R01HD018381)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Reading and Literacy Development
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
Keywords
Broca's area, lexical processing, grammatical processing, phonological processing, local field potentials, intracranial electrophysiology, word reading, grammatical inflection, spatiotemporal neural activity
MeSH terms
Adult, Brain Mapping, Electrodes, Implanted, Epilepsy, Female, Frontal Lobe, Humans, Language, Linguistics, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Mental Processes, Middle Aged, Neurons, Speech, Time Factors, Electrophysiological Phenomena

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