Functional lateralization of major Chinese language cortex for presurgical evaluation in neurosurgery

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the functional lateralization of major Chinese language cortex in patients with cerebral arteriovenous malformation (AVM) in dominant hemispheric via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Methods: Nine right-handed normal volunteers and fourteen patients with cerebral AVM in dominant hemisphere diagnosed in Beijing Tiantan Hospital between December 2017 and June 2018 were included. Three language tasks (semantic judgment, word reading, and listening comprehension) were applied to activate language areas. Lateralization index (LI) was used to show the dominant hemisphere. Results: In the control group, right-sided lateralization of BOLD signal activations was observed in 0/27 (0%) of the language tasks. While in the AVM patients, right-sided lateralization of BOLD signal activations was observed in 8/42 (19%) language tasks. The difference was statistically significant (χ(2)=5.73, P=0.019). Conclusions: The dominant hemisphere of different language tasks may be different in patients with cerebral lesions. Compared with normal controls, patients with cerebral AVM in dominant hemispheric are more likely to have right-sided lateralization of language cortex.