Cerebral hemodynamic response in Chinese (first) and English (second) language processing revealed by event-related functional MRI

Comparative functional neuroimaging studies using the block design paradigm have previously demonstrated that there are no significant differences in the location of areas of cerebral activation when native Chinese speakers i ndependently process single words or sentences in both the Chinese (first) and English (second) languages. While it has also been documented that sign ificant domains of brain response include the inferior to middle left front al lobe, the latency, amplitude and duration of the associated hemodynamic changes during isolated neural processing of Chinese and English languages still remain unknown. The aim of this study, therefore, was to examine the characteristics of the hemodynamic alterations in the above-mentioned regio ns with event-related functional MRI (ER-fMRI) when native Chinese speakers performed verb generation tasks in both the Chinese (first) and English (s econd) languages. Our results demonstrate the presence of a similar neural activity-induced hemodynamic response in the inferior to middle left fronta l lobe during both tasks. Further, there were also no statistically signifi cant differences among the variables that described the hemodynamic respons e curves. These findings strongly imply that the underlying neural mechanis m for Chinese (first) and English (second) language processing may be simil ar in native Chinese speakers. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights re served.