Distinct prefrontal activations in processing sequence at the sentence andscript level: An fMRI study

Neuropsychological studies have shown that the prefrontal cortex is importa nt in planning and monitoring everyday behaviour. In this study, using func tional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we investigated whether specific prefrontal regions are involved in processing a sequence of actions. Subjec ts were required to perform two different tasks: Script-event order and Sen tence-word order. Script sequence and word sequence processing were found t o activate partially overlapping areas which are known to be implicated in language processing. In addition, the Script-task activated a large area in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (Brodmann area 6 and 8, BA 6 and 8), in both the left and right hemispheres, as well as the left supplementary mot or area and left angular gyrus (BA 39). Our results suggest that these pref rontal areas may be more specifically involved in the process of analysing sequential links in the action domain. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All r ights reserved.