Regional Cerebral Blood Flow During Sign Language Perception: Deaf & Hearing Subjects with Deaf Parents Compared Jagoda Konarska, Maria Bak, Marina Kaneva & Alina Fesenko B. Söderfeldt, J. Rönnberg & J. Risberg
Overview I. Introduction II. Goals and Study III. Subjects IV. Method V. Results
Introduction cerebral activation deaf and hearing subjects with deaf parents deaf group depended more on spatial components
Goals and Study find out similarities between signed and spoken language both seem to activate much the same regions in the brain more occipital activation in sign language sign language seems to involve the right hemisphere? study: compare sign language lateralization and localization between hearing and deaf children of deaf parents
Subjects 6 deaf subjects; 9 hearing subject all had deaf parents no psychiatric history Swedish sign language as mother tongue all were right-handed
Method high resolution rCBF Swedish novel was translated into Swedish sign language presented by a deaf man signing instruction: focus on story retell story Activation was compared during sign language and rest
Results both groups - a high bifrontal activation during rest Brain activation: deaf group:parieto-occipital lobe; hearing signers temporal lobe Conclusion: deafness leads to enhanced right hemisphere activation enhanced right hemisphere parieto- occipital activation = an effect of a lack of auditory stimulation + early learning of a visual-spatial language
Bibliography Söderfeldt, B., Rönnberg, J. & J. Risberg Regional Cerebral Blood Flow During Sign Language Perception: Deaf & Hearing Subjects with Deaf Parents Compared. In: Sign Language Studies,