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Updated: Jul 31, 2025

Fiber Connections of the Supplementary Motor Area Revisited: Methodology of Fiber Dissection, DTI, and Three Dimensional Documentation
Published on: May 23, 2017
Domain-general and domain-specific functional networks of Broca's area underlying language processing
Talat Bulut1,2
1Neurobiology of Language Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Introduction:
Despite abundant research on the role of Broca's area in language processing, there is still no consensus on language specificity of this region and its connectivity network.
Methods:
The present study employed the meta-analytic connectivity modeling procedure to identify and compare domain-specific (language-specific) and domain-general (shared between language and other domains) functional connectivity patterns of three subdivisions within the broadly defined Broca's area: pars opercularis (IFGop), pars triangularis (IFGtri), and pars orbitalis (IFGorb) of the left inferior frontal gyrus.
Results:
The findings revealed a left-lateralized frontotemporal network for all regions of interest underlying domain-specific linguistic functions. The domain-general network, however, spanned frontoparietal regions that overlap with the multiple-demand network and subcortical regions spanning the thalamus and the basal ganglia.
Conclusions:
The findings suggest that language specificity of Broca's area emerges within a left-lateralized frontotemporal network, and that domain-general resources are garnered from frontoparietal and subcortical networks when required by task demands.
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