What happens when one of the hemispheres of the brain is injured at birth? The left hemisphere (LH) in healthy individuals performs sentence processing, while the right hemisphere (RH) analyzes vocal emotions of language. However, which region of the brain performs the functions of LH when it is injured? A recent study at Georgetown University provides an answer to this question.
Participants Group A: 15 patients (aged 9.7 – 26.5 years) with perinatal arterial ischemic stroke Group B: 12 healthy siblings (aged 9.7 – 29.5 years) of group A participants Sentence and vocal emotion processing of stroke patients were normal and similar to their healthy siblings. However, while the stroke patients processed sentences on the RH, their healthy siblings did on the LH. Among the two patients with the smallest injury, one showed LH-dominant activation, and another showed bilateral activation. The…
