Skip to main content

inferior frontal gyrus

a gyrus in the frontal lobe that is active in many different language tasks and plays a role in integrating brain regions.

Inferior Frontal Gyrus

Frontal Lobe

Anterior Cingulate

Fronto-parietal Network

Inferior Frontal Gyrus

Middle Frontal Gyrus

Orbitofrontal Cortex

Prefrontal Cortex

Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex

Older news items (pre-2010) brought over from the old website

October 2009

First-time Internet users find boost in brain function after just 1 week

A study involving 24 older adults (55-78) who had minimal experience searching the internet, found that after conducting Internet searches for one hour a day for seven days (over a two-week period), they showed changes in brain activity — recruiting parts of the middle frontal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus (areas important in working memory and decision-making). "The results suggest that searching online may be a simple form of brain exercise that might be employed to enhance cognition in older adults."

Moody, T.D., Gaddipati, H., Small, G.W. & Bookheimer, S.Y. 2009. Neural activation patterns in older adults following Internet training. Presented October 19 at the 2009 meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/uoc--fiu101509.php

June 2008

Older adults less affected by sleep deprivation than younger adults

A study involving 33 older adults (59-82) and 27 younger adults (19-38) has found that while the younger adults all showed significance deterioration on three different cognitive tasks after 36 hours of sleep deprivation, the older adults did not. The finding may be due to only the healthiest older adults being chosen, suggesting that older adults who remain the healthiest late in life may be less vulnerable to a variety of stressors, not just sleep loss.
It’s worth noting that sleep deprivation affects some people more than others. A recent study has found that those with the short variant of the PERIOD3 (PER3) gene compensate for sleep loss by "recruiting" extra brain structures to help with cognitive tasks. Those with the long variant however, showed reduced activity in brain structures normally activated by the task. These participants also showed reduced brain activity in the right posterior inferior frontal gyrus after a normal waking day, a finding consistent with previous research suggesting that people with the long gene variant perform better on executive tasks earlier, but not later, in the day (see http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-06/sfn-gph062409.php).

Wang, R.L. et al. 2009. Older Adults are Less Vulnerable to Sleep Deprivation than Younger Adults during Cognitive Performance. Presented on June 10 at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies; Abstract ID: 0420.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-06/aaos-oal060209.php

December 2007

Neural substrate of congenital amusia

Research has shown that musicians have more gray matter in certain regions of the brain involved in language and auditory processing. Now a study of tone-deaf people reveals that congenital amusia, thought to be due to a severe deficit in the processing of pitch information, is also associated with differences in gray matter distribution. Tone-deaf individuals had a thicker cortex in the right inferior frontal gyrus and right auditory cortex. This may be due to abnormal neuronal migration or atypical cell pruning during development.

Hyde, K.L. et al. 2007. Cortical Thickness in Congenital Amusia: When Less Is Better Than More. The Journal of Neuroscience, 27(47), 13028-13032.

http://www.physorg.com/news117303842.html

September 2007

Having right timing 'connections' in brain is key to overcoming dyslexia

New research has found that key areas for language and working memory involved in reading are connected differently in dyslexics than in children who are good readers and spellers. But, after the children with dyslexia went through a three-week instructional program, their patterns of functional brain connectivity normalized and were similar to those of good readers. The study looked specifically at activity in the left and right inferior frontal gyrus. The left inferior frontal gyrus may control the communication between the different areas involved in language, especially spoken language, while the right is thought to be involved in controlling the processing of letters in written words. Prior to the treatment these two areas were overconnected in the dyslexics, and the left inferior frontal gyrus also was overconnected to the middle frontal gyrus, which is involved in working memory that requires temporal coordination. It is not yet known how long the improvement in connectivity is maintained.

Richards, T.L. & Berninger, V.W. 2007. Abnormal fMRI connectivity in children with dyslexia during a phoneme task: Before but not after treatment. Journal of Neurolinguistics, Available online 17 August 2007.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-09/uow-hrt090407.php
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/09116044

May 2005

Brain networks change according to cognitive task

Using a newly released method to analyze functional magnetic resonance imaging, researchers have demonstrated that the interconnections between different parts of the brain are dynamic and not static. Moreover, the brain region that performs the integration of information shifts depending on the task being performed. The study involved two language tasks, in which subjects were asked to read individual words and then make a spelling or rhyming judgment. Imaging showed that the lateral temporal cortex (LTC) was active for the rhyming task, while the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) was active for the spelling task. The inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and the fusiform gyrus (FG) were engaged by both tasks. However, Dynamic Causal Modeling (the new method for analyzing imaging data) revealed that the network took different configurations depending on the goal of the task, with each task preferentially strengthening the influences converging on the task-specific regions (LTC for rhyming, IPS for spelling). This suggests that task specific regions serve as convergence zones that integrate information from other parts of the brain. Additionally, switching between tasks led to changes in the influence of the IFG on the task-specific regions, suggesting the IFG plays a pivotal role in making task-specific regions more or less sensitive. This is consistent with previous studies showing that the IFG is active in many different language tasks and plays a role in integrating brain regions.

Bitan, T., Booth, J.R., Choy, J., Burman, D.D., Gitelman, D.R. & Mesulam, M-M. 2005. Shifts of Effective Connectivity within a Language Network during Rhyming and Spelling. Journal of Neuroscience, 25, 5397-5403.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-06/nu-bnc060105.php

Growing the brain with a new language

A small Swedish brain imaging study adds to the evidence for the cognitive benefits of learning a new language by investigating the brain changes in students undergoing a highly intensive language course.

Brain atrophy may predict risk for early Alzheimer's disease

A study involving 159 older adults (average age 76) has confirmed that the amount of brain tissue in specific regions is a predictor of Alzheimer’s disease development. Of the 159 people, 19 were classified as at high risk on the basis of the smaller size of nine small regions previously shown to be vulnerable to Alzheimer's), and 24 as low risk. The regions, in order of importance, are the medial temporal, inferior temporal, temporal pole, angular gyrus, superior parietal, superior frontal, inferior frontal cortex, supramarginal gyrus, precuneus.

Sign language study shows multiple brain regions wired for language

Perhaps we should start thinking of language less as some specialized process and more as one approach to thought. A study involving native signers of American Sign Language (which has the helpful characteristic that subject-object relationships can be expressed in either of the two ways languages usually use: word order or inflection) has revealed that there are distinct regions of the brain that are used to process the two types of sentences: those in which word order determined the relationships between the sentence elements, and those in which inflection was providing the information.

Subscribe to inferior frontal gyrus