Right hemisphere language in a neurologically normal dextral: a fMRI study

DEXTRALS with right cerebral hemisphere dominance for language are rare. Ei ght neurologically intact dextrals underwent BOLD-fMRI while being presente d auditory and visual words. Fortuitously, in one subject, right hemisphere activations with visually presented words were seen in the inferior fronta l, premotor regions together with predominantly left cerebellar activation. These were a mirror image of activations obtained from the seven other dex trals. Also mirrored was temporal activation from auditory words which exte nded more posteriorly on the right side than the left. These results showin g mirror organization of language were replicated in another scanning sessi on and also by using a second word task. Although rare, mirrored organizati on of language can occur in normal dextrals without penalizing language fun ction. (C) 1998 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.