A collaborative research group including Professor Mitsutoshi Nakada at Department of Neurosurgery, Faculty of Medicine, and Assistant professor Riho Nakajima at Institute of Medical, Department of Occupational Therapy, Faculty of Health Science, Pharmaceutical and Health Sciences, Kanazawa University, and Professor Seiki Konishi at Juntendo University, have elucidated the characteristics of functional shifts in the posterior language area.
When a functional region of the brain is affected, brain functions may shift from their original functional localization to a different location to protect their own functions (functional shift). However, it is not clear how functional shift occurs in the human brain. This research group focused on language function (*1), which is a unique human function, and investigated the characteristics of the functional shift in language using the findings of awake surgery (*2) and resting-state functional MRI (*3). The results revealed that when the lesion extends into the original language area, the language area expands posteriorly, and that this expanded area is a hub (*4) of brain function. This indicates that when the language area is affected by a lesion, the hub area of brain function compensates for the language function.
The characteristics of the functional shift discovered in this study are extremely important findings for elucidating the plasticity of human higher brain functions, which has yet to be elucidated in the world of brain science.
The results of this research were published online in the international journal Human Brain Mapping on August 1, 2024 at 9:00 a.m. (U.S. Eastern Standard Time).
Summary of this study
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*1：Language function
Human language function consists of speaking, listening, writing, and reading. In this study, we investigated the function of speaking.
*2：Awake Surgery
Awake surgery is a surgical technique used to treat lesions in the brain. The patient is kept awake during surgery to examine the functions that are important for human life, such as movement, sensation, and language. This surgery allows the lesion to be removed without disturbing the brain functions and also without damaging brain functions.
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*3：Resting-state functional MRI
Brain activity is measured in the absence of stimuli or tasks. From the fluctuation of the measured signals, it is possible to infer the correlation of neural activity between distant brain regions, i.e., the degree of functional connectivity.
*4：Hub
An area that plays a central role in a network is called a hub. A hub is a network hub that is connected to many surrounding multiple areas.
Click here to see the press release【Japanese only】
Journal： Human Brain Mapping
Researcher's information：Mitsutoshi Nakada
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