Brain activation in the processing of Chinese characters and words: A functional MRI study

Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to identify the neural corre lates of Chinese character and word reading. The Chinese stimuli were prese nted visually, one at a time. Subjects covertly generated a word that was s emantically related to each stimulus. Three sorts of Chinese items were use d: single characters having precise meanings, single characters having vagu e meanings, and two-character Chinese words. The results indicated that rea ding Chinese is characterized by extensive activity of the neural systems, with strong left lateralization of frontal (BAs 9 and 47) and temporal (BA 37) cortices and right lateralization of visual systems (BAs 17-19), pariet al lobe (BA 3), and cerebellum. The location of peak activation in the left frontal regions coincided nearly completely both for vague- and precise-me aning characters as well as for two-character words, without dissociation i n laterality patterns. In addition, left frontal activations were modulated by the ease of semantic retrieval. The present results constitute a challe nge to the deeply ingrained belief that activations in reading single chara cters are right lateralized, whereas activations in reading two-character w ords are left lateralized. Hum. Brain Mapping 10:16-27, 2000. (C) 2000 Wile y-Liss, Inc.