Obligatory Role of the LIFG in Synonym Generation: Evidence from PET and Cortical Stimulation

We report results from a patient in whom we obtained converging evidence from positron emission tomography (PET) and intraoperative stimulation mapping to support a one-way dissociation between the functional areas involved in word repetition and synonym generation. Intraoperative stimulation mapping interfered with synonym generation but did not disturb word repetition at the same left inferior frontal site at which a cerebral blood flow (CBF) increase had been observed for a synonym generation task. The results for this single subject suggest that the functional areas involved in different aspects of linguistic processing are dissociable and that specific disruption under conditions of cortical stimulation can be correlated with the brain regions identified via PET as the most active during performance of a specific task.