Neural mechanisms of Korean word reading: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study

The use of functional magnetic resonance imaging permits the collection of brain activation patterns when native Korean speakers (12 persons as subjects) read Korean words and Chinese characters. The Korean language uses both alphabetic Korean words and logographic Chinese characters in its writing system. Our experimental results show that the activation patterns obtained for reading Chinese characters by Korean native speakers involve neural mechanisms that are similar to Chinese native speakers; i.e. strong left-lateralized middle frontal cortex activation. For the case of Korean word reading, the activation pattern in the bilateral fusiform gyrus, left middle frontal gyrus, left superior temporal gyrus, right mid temporal gyrus, precentral gyrus, and insula was observed. This suggests that the activation pattern for Korean word reading appears to corroborate with that of alphabetic words at the general level. A further noteworthy finding of our study is the strong activation of the posterior part of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BA 8). The right hemispheric BA 8 belongs to the visual higher order control area and we propose that this area should be responsible for processing of visuospatial (surface form) information of Korean words.