Putting the brain in Jeopardy: a novel comprehensive and expressive language task?
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Updated: Mar 24, 2026

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation tDCS of Wernicke's and Broca's Areas in Studies of Language Learning and Word Acquisition
Published on: July 13, 2019
Erik Magnus Berntsen1, Inge-Andre Rasmussen1, Petter Samuelsen1
11Department of Circulation and Imaging, Faculty of Medicine, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway.
Objective:
To develop and test a novel fMRI compatible comprehensive and expressive language task that reliably and predictably activates both Wernicke's and Broca's cortical brain regions, respectively, and has utility for the determination of hemispheric language dominance.
Methods:
Ten healthy men (seven) and women (three) were administered a task based on the television game Jeopardy that was adapted for fMRI presentation. The task was programmed using E-PRIME software and designed to run as an event-related experiment. The study was conducted on 3 T MRI Phillips Intera scanner, and data was anlysed using Brain Voyager QX. All subjects provided written informed consent.
Results:
The Jeopardy task produced robust left hemisphere activation in regions corresponding to Wernicke's and Broca's areas.
Conclusion:
This novel fMRI compatible task (Jeopardy) reliably maps both Broca's and Wernicke's areas with robust hemispheric lateralization. It is potentially useful in language localization studies as it offers advantages over conventional procedures and other fMRI tasks by virtue of being non-invasive and mapping both language areas in one experiment.
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