Humans are uniquely able to retrieve and combine words into syntactic structure to produce connected speech. Previous identification of focal brain regions necessary for production focused primarily on associations with the content produced by speakers with chronic stroke, where function may have shifted to other regions after reorganization occurred. Here, we relate patterns of brain damage with deficits to the content and structure of spontaneous connected speech in 52 speakers during the acute stage of a left hemisphere stroke. Multivariate lesion behaviour mapping demonstrated that damage to temporal-parietal regions impacted the ability to retrieve words and produce them within increasingly complex combinations. Damage primarily to inferior frontal cortex affected the production of syntactically accurate structure. In contrast to previous work, functional-anatomical dissociations did not depend on lesion size likely because acute lesions were smaller than typically found in chronic stroke. These results are consistent with predictions from theoretical models based primarily on evidence from language comprehension and highlight the importance of investigating individual differences in brain-language relationships in speakers with acute stroke.

中文翻译：

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急性中风中额叶和颞顶叶对连接言语的贡献之间的分离。


人类具有独特的能力来检索单词并将其组合成句法结构以产生相互关联的语音。以前对生产所需的大脑焦点区域的识别主要集中于与患有慢性中风的说话者所产生的内容的关联，这些区域的功能在重组发生后可能已经转移到其他区域。在这里，我们将 52 名说话者在左半球中风急性期的脑损伤模式与自发连接言语的内容和结构联系起来。多变量损伤行为图谱表明，颞顶叶区域的损伤影响了检索单词并在日益复杂的组合中产生单词的能力。主要对下额叶皮层的损伤影响了句法精确结构的产生。与之前的工作相反，功能解剖分离并不取决于病变大小，可能是因为急性病变比慢性中风中常见的病变要小。这些结果与主要基于语言理解证据的理论模型的预测一致，并强调了研究急性中风说话者大脑语言关系个体差异的重要性。