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Published on: August 12, 2019
Essential language function of the right hemisphere in brain tumor patients
Alexander Thiel1, Birgit Habedank, Lutz Winhuisen
1Department of Neurology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany. A.Thiel@pet.mpin-koeln.mpg.de
Abstract:
Neuroimaging studies of language networks in patients with brain lesions of the left language-dominant hemisphere have shown activation in the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). We tested the functional relevance of right IFG activation using neuroimaging-guided repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to disturb language function over bilateral IFG in right-handed patients with brain tumors and controls. All subjects were susceptible to TMS over the left IFG. In patients, this susceptibility correlated with left-sided the degree of language lateralization to the left. Those patients with lowest dominance were also susceptible to right-sided TMS proving relevant language function of the right IFG.
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