Lexical tone processing in speech is mediated by bilateral superior temporal and inferior prefrontal regions, but little is known concerning the neural circuitries of lexical tone phonology in reading. Using fMRI, we examined the neural systems for lexical tone in visual Chinese word recognition. We found that the extraction of lexical tone phonology in print was subserved by bilateral fronto-parietal regions. Seed-to-voxel analyses showed that functionally connected cortical regions involved right inferior frontal gyrus and SMA, right middle frontal gyrus and right inferior parietal lobule, and SMA and bilateral cingulate gyri. Our results indicate that in Chinese tone reading, a bilateral network of frontal, parietal, motor, and cingulate regions is engaged, without involvement of temporal regions crucial for tone identification in auditory domain. Although neural couplings for lexical tone processing are different in speech and reading to some degree, the motor cortex seems to be a key component independent of modality.

中文翻译：

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阅读中词汇语调处理的神经相关性和功能连通性

语音中的词汇音调处理由双侧颞上区和前额叶下区介导，但关于阅读中词汇音调音系的神经回路知之甚少。使用 fMRI，我们检查了视觉中文单词识别中词汇音调的神经系统。我们发现双侧额顶叶区域支持印刷中词汇声调音系的提取。种子到体素分析表明，功能连接的皮质区域涉及右侧额下回和 SMA、右侧额中回和右侧顶下小叶，以及 SMA 和双侧扣带回。我们的结果表明，在中文声调阅读中，额叶、顶叶、运动和扣带回区域的双边网络参与，不涉及对听觉域中的音调识别至关重要的时间区域。尽管用于词汇音调处理的神经耦合在说话和阅读方面有所不同，但运动皮层似乎是独立于模态的关键组成部分。