Syntactic processing in left prefrontal cortex is independent of lexical meaning

In language comprehension a syntactic representation is built up even when the input is semantically uninterpretable. We report data on brain activati on during syntactic processing, from an experiment on the detection of gram matical errors in meaningless sentences. The experimental paradigm was such that the syntactic processing was distinguished from other cognitive and l inguistic functions. The data reveal that in syntactic error detection an a rea of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, adjacent to Broca's area, i s specifically involved in the syntactic processing aspects, whereas other prefrontal areas subserve general error detection processes. (C) 2001 Acade mic Press.