Language Development across the Life Span: A Neuropsychological/Neuroimaging Perspective

Table 6

Summary of main findings of brain organization of language using neuroimaging techniques from infancy to adulthood.

Author		Age	Main findings	Language test	Technique
Leroy et al. [36]	14	1–4 months	The ventral superior temporal sulcus (STS) is less mature than the inferior frontal area. A significant difference of maturation in the STS favors the right side.	None	MRI
Dehaene-Lambertz et al. [11]	20	3 months	Left-lateralized brain regions (the superior temporal and angular gyri) were already active in infants.	Oral speech stimuli	fMRI
Pujol et al. [35]	100	0–3 yrs.	Changes in the volume of myelinated WM began in the sensorimotor WM and the Heschl gyrus and extended to language-related areas. Both comprehension and production regions showed a very similar myelination course.	None	MRI
Su et al. [34]	241; 25	0–429 wks.; 14-to-83 years	Higher cortical areas (Broca and Wernicke) matured later than the primary cortical areas, while the arcuate fasciculus matured last.	None	MRI
Szaflarski et al. [67]	30	5, 6 & 7 yrs.	With increasing age, there is progressive participation of the inferior/middle frontal, middle temporal, and angular gyri of the left hemisphere and the lingual and inferior temporal gyri of the right hemisphere	Verb generation task	fMRI
Ressel et al. [69]	22	7–16 yrs.	Significant increase of left hemisphere lateralization as a function of age was observed for both tasks.	Verb generation task and vowel-identification	MEG
Brown et al. [66]	95	7–32 yrs.	Systematic increases and decreases in cortical activity over age, by region. Age-related increases in activity were primarily in the left frontal and left parietal cortex. Decreases attenuated with age and were found across a broader neuroanatomical range, containing earlier processing regions such as the bilateral extrastriate cortex.	Word generation	fMRI
Kadis et al. [42]	28	5–19 yrs.	Positive correlation between left hemisphere lateralization during this language task and age.	Verb generation task	MEG
Friederici et al. [13]	15 children; 16 adults	5–7 yrs.; 26–30 yrs.	While adults display a network clearly lateralized in the left hemisphere underlying sentence processing, 6-year-old children demonstrate stronger inter-hemispheric connectivity.	Sentence grammar identification	fMRI
Holland et al. [58]	17	7–19 yrs.	Significant association between hemisphere lateralization and age was found. Although most subjects at all ages showed left hemisphere dominance for this task, the degree of lateralization increased with age.	Verb generation task	fMRI
Lidzba et al. [55]	36	6–24 yrs.	Language comprehension was associated with more focal activation with age in the bilateral superior temporal gyri with no increases of lateralization with age. The language production task showed an increase with age both in focus and lateralization.	Beep stories task (language comprehension) and Vowel identification task (language production task)	fMRI
Schlösser et al. [97]	12	22–26 yrs.	Activation in the left prefrontal cortex and right cerebellum.	Verbal fluency task	fMRI
Meinzer et al. [100]	16; 16	20–33 yrs.; 66–88 yrs.	Performance during the phonemic task was equivalent for both age groups and mirrored by strongly left-lateralized (frontal) activity patterns. The decline in performance during the semantic task in the older group was complemented with additional right (inferior and middle) frontal activity, which was negatively correlated with performance.	Semantic and phonemic fluency tasks	fMRI
Nuñez et al. [41]	19	7.2–15.8 yrs.	Increased activation in the left and decreased activation in the right inferior front gyrus (with surge of cortical thickness in the right) was associated with increased syntactic proficiency. A maturational shift towards decreased involvement of the right IFG for syntactic processing is found.	Sentence comprehension and judgment task	fMRI
Obler et al. [96]	24	56–79 yrs.	Older adults with better naming skills could rely on right-hemisphere perisylvian and mid-frontal regions and pathways, in conjunction with left-hemisphere perisylvian and mid-frontal regions, to achieve success.	Boston Naming Test and Action Naming Test	MRI and DTI
Abrahams et al. [98]	18	39–76 yrs.	Verbal fluency was associated with activation in the middle frontal gyrus (BA 46 and 9), the anterior cingulate gyrus, and the inferior frontal gyrus (area 44 and 45). Confrontation naming activated areas of the temporooccipital cortices (areas 18, 19, and 37) and the inferior frontal gyrus.	Verbal fluency and confrontation	fMRI

Note. MRI = magnetic Resonance Imaging; fMRI = functional; MEG = magnetoencephalography; DIT = diffusion tensor imaging.