| Funding Scheme : |
General Research Fund |
| Project Number : |
15609423 |
| Project Title(English) : |
Group-level and individual-level precision functional mapping of the linguistic cerebellum: comparisons across linguistic and motor domains |
| Project Title(Chinese) : |
群體及個體的小腦語言功能圖譜：跨語言和運動領域的比較 |
| Principal Investigator(English) : |
Dr FONG, Cheuk Man Manson |
| Principal Investigator(Chinese) : |
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| Department : |
Department of Language Science and Technology |
| Institution : |
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University |
| Co - Investigator(s) : |
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Dr Chau, Ka Hung Bolton
|
|
Dr Ma, Matthew King-Hang
|
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Prof Schoenemann, P Thomas
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|
| Panel : |
Humanities, Social Sciences |
| Subject Area : |
Psychology and Linguistics |
| Exercise Year : |
2023 / 24 |
| Fund Approved : |
1,063,292 |
| Project Status : |
On-going
|
| Completion Date : |
31-12-2026 |
Abstract as per original application
(English/Chinese): |
The past decades witnessed a major revision of the entrenched view that the cerebellum contributes solely to motor and vestibular functions. The internal model hypothesis has provided a plausible unifying mechanism regarding the cerebellar roles in motor and cognitive activities, both central elements of language. In parallel with the cerebral cortex and basal ganglia which select actions (both physical movements and mental thoughts) in a goal-directed and explicit manner, the cerebellum is proposed to host internal models that control actions implicitly. In particular, with its extensive reciprocal connections with cerebral cortices, the posterolateral cerebellum is posited to play crucial roles in implicit linguistic processing. Accordingly, increased activations of the posterolateral cerebellum are elicited by tasks involving various linguistic levels, such as verb generation and some syntactic and semantic tasks.
The present study seeks to advance the knowledge on the “linguistic cerebellum”, by situating the topographical maps for different linguistic processes alongside those for the better understood “motor cerebellum”. The comparison across the two domains is motivated by the fact that language production or even comprehension inherently depend on motor functions. Also, because the individual organizations are often masked in the group-level functional maps, even the most important organizational principles like functional lateralization have remained unclear at the cerebellar level, let alone the full range of normal cerebellar organizations of language.
Forty each of young right-handers and non-right-handers will undergo functional magnetic resonance imaging. First, they will perform the manual and verbal versions of two paradigms—sensorimotor synchronization and serial reaction time, along with a language localizer task. Through these tasks, the cognitive rather than the purely motor–articulatory substrates of language will be revealed by testing the differential selectivity of the anterior and posterolateral cerebellum in timing and sequencing language and movement. Next, a sub-group of twenty-four participants with varying cerebral asymmetry (as determined by the language localizer) will attend five structurally identical sessions to allow for reliable individual-level mapping of the linguistic cerebellum. Each session comprises a series of language comprehension and production tasks that focus on distinct linguistic units (word, word-pair, and sentence). Other participants will perform these tasks once to allow for group-level comparisons.
Overall, this study promises to deliver representative individual data that reveal the normal cerebellar organization and hemispheric asymmetry patterns at both cerebral and cerebellar levels. It represents an important step towards individualized monitoring of neurodevelopmental disorders in which the cerebellum is seriously affected, including autism and dyslexia.
已往，小腦被認為只有運動和平衡功能，但在近二、三十年，這一根深蒂固的觀點已逐漸站不住腳。對於運動和認知活動這兩個語言的核心要素，小腦均起了重要作用。內部模型假說提出了一個可行的統一機制來解釋小腦在這兩方面的功能。具體來說，此假說認為大腦皮層和基底神經節以目標導向和外顯的方式選擇行動（包括身體動作和思維），而小腦則存有內部模型，內隱地控制行動。尤其是小腦後外側這一腦區，因為它與大腦皮層有着廣泛的相互聯繫，因此在內隱語言處理中，作用最為重要。一些牽涉到各種語言層面的任務，例如動詞產生及一些句法和語義任務，都會加強啓動小腦後外側。
本研究旨在對比語言功能及更為人所理解的「運動小腦」，以加深對「語言小腦」的認識。比較這兩個領域的動機在於，語言的產生、甚或理解本質上其實也取決於運動功能。另外，個體的腦功能圖譜經常被群體層面的所掩蓋。因此，有些在小腦層面最重要的組織原則，例如腦功能側化，目前仍尚未明確，更遑論整個正常小腦的語言組織。
研究招募慣用右手以及非慣用右手的年輕人各40人，參加功能性磁力共振成像實驗。首先，他們將進行兩個經典任務（感知運動同步和序列反應時間）的手動和口頭版本，以及一個語言定位任務。這些任務藉着測試小腦前方和後側部分在語言和運動的定時和排序方面的差異，將會揭示語言的認知基礎，而並非單純的運動發音基礎。然後，由 24 名參加者組成的小組，將參與五節結構相同的活動，以便從個體層面準確地定位語言小腦。每節都包含一系列着重於不同的語言單位（單詞、短句和句子）的語言理解和產生任務。其他參與者則將執行這些任務一次，以便作分組比較。
總括而言，這項研究有望提供有代表性的個體數據，揭示小腦的正常功能組織以及在大腦和小腦層面的功能側化。它亦有助推進個體化監測一些小腦嚴重受影響的神經發展障礙，包括自閉症和閱讀障礙。
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| Research Outcome |
Layman's Summary of
Completion Report: |
Not yet submitted
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