Who is who: areas of the brain associated with recognizing and naming famous faces.

Details

Serval ID
serval:BIB_C04E3D34C85A
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Title
Who is who: areas of the brain associated with recognizing and naming famous faces.
Journal
Journal of Neurosurgery
Author(s)
Giussani C., Roux F.E., Bello L., Lauwers-Cances V., Papagno C., Gaini S.M., Puel M., Démonet J.F.
ISSN
0022-3085 (Print)
ISSN-L
0022-3085
Publication state
Published
Issued date
2009
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
110
Number
2
Pages
289-299
Language
english
Notes
Publication types: Journal Article Publication Status: ppublish. PDF type: Clinical article
Abstract
OBJECT: It has been hypothesized that specific brain regions involved in face naming may exist in the brain. To spare these areas and to gain a better understanding of their organization, the authors studied patients who underwent surgery by using direct electrical stimulation mapping for brain tumors, and they compared an object-naming task to a famous face-naming task.
METHODS: Fifty-six patients with brain tumors (39 and 17 in the left and right hemispheres, respectively) and with no significant preoperative overall language deficit were prospectively studied over a 2-year period. Four patients who had a partially selective famous face anomia and 2 with prosopagnosia were not included in the final analysis.
RESULTS: Face-naming interferences were exclusively localized in small cortical areas (< 1 cm2). Among 35 patients whose dominant left hemisphere was studied, 26 face-naming specific areas (that is, sites of interference in face naming only and not in object naming) were found. These face naming-specific sites were significantly detected in 2 regions: in the left frontal areas of the superior, middle, and inferior frontal gyri (p < 0.001) and in the anterior part of the superior and middle temporal gyri (p < 0.01). Variable patterns of interference were observed (speech arrest, anomia, phonemic, or semantic paraphasia) probably related to the different stages in famous face processing. Only 4 famous face-naming interferences were found in the right hemisphere.
CONCLUSIONS: Relative anatomical segregation of naming categories within language areas was detected. This study showed that famous face naming was preferentially processed in the left frontal and anterior temporal gyri. The authors think it is necessary to adapt naming tasks in neurosurgical patients to the brain region studied.
Keywords
Adult, Aged, Anomia/physiopathology, Anomia/surgery, Attention/physiology, Brain Mapping/methods, Brain Neoplasms/physiopathology, Brain Neoplasms/surgery, Cerebral Cortex/physiopathology, Cerebral Cortex/surgery, Dominance, Cerebral/physiology, Female, Frontal Lobe/physiopathology, Frontal Lobe/surgery, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Mental Recall/physiology, Middle Aged, Pattern Recognition, Visual/physiology, Prosopagnosia/physiopathology, Prosopagnosia/surgery, Prospective Studies, Recognition (Psychology)/physiology, Temporal Lobe/physiopathology, Temporal Lobe/surgery
Pubmed
Web of science
Create date
24/03/2013 19:06
Last modification date
20/08/2019 15:34
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