Reading in a Regular Orthography: An fMRI Study Investigating the Role of Visual Familiarity
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
Orthography Influences the Perception of Speech in Alexic Patients
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
Visualizing the Neural Bases of a Disconnection Syndrome with Diffusion Tensor Imaging
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
Neural Specialization for Letter Recognition
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
fMRI Evidence for Dual Routes to the Mental Lexicon in Visual Word Recognition
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
A Parametric Approach to Orthographic Processing in the Brain: An fMRI Study
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
Imaging Cognition II: An Empirical Review of 275 PET and fMRI Studies
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
The Neural Circuitry Involved in the Reading of German Words and Pseudowords: A PET Study
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
The Neural Substrate of Picture Naming
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
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Viewing of single words produces a cognitively complex mental state in which anticipation, emotional responses, visual perceptual analysis, and activation of orthographic representations are all occurring. Previous PET studies have produced conflicting results, perhaps due to the conflation of these separate processes or the presence of subtle differences in stimulus material and methodology. A PET study of 10 normal individuals was carried out using the bolus H215O intravenous injection technique to examine components of processing of passively viewed words. Subjects viewed blocks of random-letter strings or abstract, concrete, or emotional words (words with positive or negative emotional salience). Baseline conditions were either passive viewing of plus signs or an anticipatory state (viewing plus signs after being warned to expect words or random letters to appear imminently). All words (and to a lesser extent the random letters) produced robust activation of cerebral blood flow in the left posterior temporal lobe, in addition to bilateral occipital activation. Furthermore, emotional words produced activation in orbital and midline frontal structures. Further activation in the left orbital frontal gyrus, the left inferior temporal gyrus, the left caudate nucleus, the anterior cingulate, and the cerebellum could be ascribed to the anticipatory state. This pattern of activity suggests that the occipital regions are recruited for visual-perceptual analysis of words, and the left temporal lobe represents the neural substrate for the orthographic lexicon. In addition, emotionally relevant material produces further processing in limbic brain structures of the frontal lobes. Detailed analysis of the task therefore substantially clarifies the neuroanatomic basis of single-word processing.