A neural basis for lexical retrieval

• DOI: 10.1038/380499a0
• Publication Date: 2003-08-12T01:58:51Z
• Authors: Hanna Damasio; Thomas J. Grabowski; Daniel Tranel; Richard D. Hichwa; Antonio R. Damasio
• Keywords: Adult; Male; Brain Diseases; Brain Mapping; Middle Aged; Vocabulary; Temporal Lobe; 03 medical and health sciences; 0302 clinical medicine; Humans; Female; Language; Tomography, Emission-Computed

Two parallel studies using positron emission tomography, one conducted in neurological patients with brain lesions, the other in normal individuals, indicate that the normal process of retrieving words that denote concrete entities depends in part on multiple regions of the left cerebral hemisphere, located outside the classic language areas. Moreover, anatomically separable regions tends to process words for distinct kinds of items.