Human brain activation network for Chinese character processing: An fMRI study

Abstract

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) or positron emission tomography (PET), much knowledge has been gained in understanding how the brain is activated during controlled experiments of language tasks in educated healthy subjects and in uneducated healthy subjects. While previous studies have compared performance between alphabetic subjects, few data were about Chinese-speaking individuals. In this study, we used fMRI to investigate brain activations in processing characters and figures by visual tasks in 13 Chinese subjects. Significant activation patterns were observed in the occipital regions, the temporal regions, the parietal regions, the frontal regions and cerebellum. We conclude that constellation of neural substrates is bilateral network for Chinese healthy subjects and the formation of this neural network is affected by the impact of education rather than experience.