Regional cerebral blood flow patterns related to verification of low- and high-imagery sentences

Although several SPECT studies have shown left inferior occipital activation with visual imagery, the reliability of this finding remains doubtful. The present study replicated two conditions of a previous SPECT-study exploring rCBF in subjects verifying the correctness of low- and high-imagery sentences. As in the previous study, verification of high-imagery sentences was associated with higher flow rates in the left inferior occipital region and lower flow rates in the right anterior frontal region. By contrast, a bilateral increase of thalamic flow rates with imagery was not replicated, and there was a higher flow rate in the left inferior temporal region with low-imagery sentences which had not been found in the original study.