Maturation of brain structure and language development
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1
Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Germany
The symposium will bring together prominent researchers in the field of early language development who use functional and structural brain imaging approaches to describe the neural basis of language during infancy. Jacques Mehler will report ERP and fNIRS studies describing how infants extract phonological, syntactic and lexical regularities from speech input. Ghislaine Dehaene-Lambertz will discuss ERP and functional as well as structural MRI results from infants and adults to argue for a strong similarity of the language system between the age groups, claiming that the dorsal pathway between BA 44 and the posterior temporal cortex is already established in the preverbal infant. Daniela Perani will provide functional and structural MRI data of newborns on the basis of which she argues that although the basic language relevant brain systems are installed at birth, the intrahemispheric pathways still have to progressively mature as the brain develops. Jens Brauer will present functional and structural MRI data to show that the pathway connecting BA 44 and the temporal cortex dorsally is not yet fully matured at the age of 7 years, arguing that the maturation of this pathway is a necessary precondition for full language capacities. Although there is agreement that the basic parts of the language system are in place very early it will be discussed to what extent the different parts are already interconnected structurally and functionally. Moreover, the question will be discussed how these early brain systems can explain the language processing abilities observed during the first months of life.
Keywords:
brain structure,
ERP,
language development,
MRI
Conference:
XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI), Palma, Mallorca, Spain, 25 Sep - 29 Sep, 2011.
Presentation Type:
Introduction
Topic:
Symposium 16: Maturation of brain structure and language development
Citation:
Friederici
AD
(2011). Maturation of brain structure and language development.
Conference Abstract:
XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI).
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2011.207.00561
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Received:
14 Nov 2011;
Published Online:
28 Nov 2011.
*
Correspondence:
Prof. Angela D Friederici, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany, friederici@cbs.mpg.de