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The Journal of Neuroscience, October 7, 2009, 29(40):12568-12573; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5934-08.2009

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Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
Temporal Order Processing of Syllables in the Left Parietal Lobe

Dana Moser,¹ Julie M. Baker,¹ Carmen E. Sanchez,² Chris Rorden,¹ and Julius Fridriksson¹

Departments of ¹Communication Sciences and Disorders and ²Psychology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina 29208

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Dana Moser, Center for Clinical Neurosciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, 1333 Moursund Street, Suite H114, Houston, TX 77030. Email: dmoser{at}bcm.tmc.edu

Speech processing requires the temporal parsing of syllable order. Individuals suffering from posterior left hemisphere brain injury often exhibit temporal processing deficits as well as language deficits. Although the right posterior inferior parietal lobe has been implicated in temporal order judgments (TOJs) of visual information, there is limited evidence to support the role of the left inferior parietal lobe (IPL) in processing syllable order. The purpose of this study was to examine whether the left inferior parietal lobe is recruited during temporal order judgments of speech stimuli. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data were collected on 14 normal participants while they completed the following forced-choice tasks: (1) syllable order of multisyllabic pseudowords, (2) syllable identification of single syllables, and (3) gender identification of both multisyllabic and monosyllabic speech stimuli. Results revealed increased neural recruitment in the left inferior parietal lobe when participants made judgments about syllable order compared with both syllable identification and gender identification. These findings suggest that the left inferior parietal lobe plays an important role in processing syllable order and support the hypothesized role of this region as an interface between auditory speech and the articulatory code. Furthermore, a breakdown in this interface may explain some components of the speech deficits observed after posterior damage to the left hemisphere.

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Received Dec. 15, 2008; revised April 9, 2009; accepted May 8, 2009.

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Dana Moser, Center for Clinical Neurosciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, 1333 Moursund Street, Suite H114, Houston, TX 77030. Email: dmoser{at}bcm.tmc.edu

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