PET ACTIVATION AND LANGUAGE

Brain activation studies using positron emission tomography (PET) to s tudy language have produced a breakthrough in our understanding of the neural basis of language over the past decade. A neural basis for the visual lexicon and for auditory verbal short term memory components h ave been proposed. Wernicke's and Broca's areas are being recast in te rms of localized components of phonological input and output. Some cla ssical regions, such as the arcuate fasciculus, are having their ''cla ssical'' roles questioned, while other regions, such as the basal temp oral language zone, are growing progressively in terms of their recogn ized importance. Finally, other areas, such as the anterior cingulate and the left inferior prefrontal area, seem to be activated across a r ange of tasks, but their exact processing roles remain a matter of som e debate. (C) 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.