The goal of the proposed research is to identify the areas of the brain that support the assignment of syntactic structure and the use of syntax to determine thematic roles using fMRI. The proposed research will test the hypothesis that the L IFG (Broca's area, BA 44 and 45, extending into 46/47) supports two aspects of the working memory system that is utilized during assignment of syntactic structure and interpretation of sentences - """"""""storage,"""""""" the storage of constituents in memory while they have yet to be assigned all their grammatical roles, and """"""""integration,"""""""" the assignment of thematic roles based on grammatical positions of noun phrases. We will test for the localization of these functions in two ways: using tasks that involve implicit syntactic and thematic processing, and using conjunction analyses in sets of tasks that involve explicit syntactic and thematic processing. We predict that increases in memory load (""""""""storage costs"""""""") and in computational load (""""""""integration costs"""""""") will lead to BOLD signal increases in L IFG in these tasks. The neural basis of syntactic processing is important to human health because syntactic structures are important to human communication. Syntax determines the relationships between words that allow sentences to convey information beyond what is conveyed by words alone (e.g., who is initiating an action, who receiving it, which adjectives are assigned to which nouns, and other relations between words). This propositional information is the source of much of the information stored in semantic memory, can be used in thinking logically, and serve the purpose of planning actions. Syntax allows the meanings of words to be combined in ways that do not correspond to likely events. This allows humans to think about possible events, not just react to events that have taken place or are likely to. The loss of the ability to use syntax to determine sentence meaning is thus a subtle but major problem for patients with stroke and other neurological diseases. By providing better information about what parts of the brain are involved in syntactic processing in normal individuals, this project will help clinicians identify patients at risk for such disorders, which can then be targeted in therapy.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01DC002146-12
Application #
7672332
Study Section
Language and Communication Study Section (LCOM)
Program Officer
Cooper, Judith
Project Start
1996-02-01
Project End
2011-08-31
Budget Start
2009-09-01
Budget End
2011-08-31
Support Year
12
Fiscal Year
2009
Total Cost
$364,104
Indirect Cost
Name
Massachusetts General Hospital
Department
Type
DUNS #
073130411
City
Boston
State
MA
Country
United States
Zip Code
02199
Rapp, Brenda; Caplan, David; Edwards, Susan et al. (2013) Neuroimaging in aphasia treatment research: issues of experimental design for relating cognitive to neural changes. Neuroimage 73:200-7
Caplan, David; Gow, David (2012) Effects of tasks on BOLD signal responses to sentence contrasts: Review and commentary. Brain Lang 120:174-86
Caplan, David (2010) Task effects on BOLD signal correlates of implicit syntactic processing. Lang Cogn Process 25:866-901
Caplan, David (2009) Experimental design and interpretation of functional neuroimaging studies of cognitive processes. Hum Brain Mapp 30:59-77
Caplan, David; Chen, Evan; Waters, Gloria (2008) Task-dependent and task-independent neurovascular responses to syntactic processing. Cortex 44:257-75
Caplan, David; Stanczak, Louise; Waters, Gloria (2008) Syntactic and thematic constraint effects on blood oxygenation level dependent signal correlates of comprehension of relative clauses. J Cogn Neurosci 20:643-56
Caplan, David (2006) Why is Broca's area involved in syntax? Cortex 42:469-71
Chen, Evan; West, W Caroline; Waters, Gloria et al. (2006) Determinants of bold signal correlates of processing object-extracted relative clauses. Cortex 42:591-604
Caplan, David; Chen, Evan (2006) Using fMRI to discover cognitive operations. Cortex 42:393-5; discussion 422-7
Caplan, David; Moo, Lauren (2004) Cognitive conjunction and cognitive functions. Neuroimage 21:751-6

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