Language-Activated Cerebral Blood Oxygenation and Hemodynamic Changes of the Left Prefrontal Cortex in Poststroke Aphasic Patients

Abstract

The present results demonstrate a multiplicity of language-activated cerebral blood oxygenation and hemodynamic changes in the left prefrontal cortex in the nonaphasic and aphasic groups. The increase of deoxy-Hb with increases of oxy-Hb and total-Hb in the aphasics during language tasks suggests that the left prefrontal cortex of the aphasics utilizes more oxygen than the nonaphasics during language tasks. Finally, functional MRI, which images the activation area in the brain by detecting the reduced concentration of deoxy-Hb during neuronal activation, should be performed on the patients with cerebral dysfunction, giving special consideration to the possible multiplicity of the rCBF and cerebral oxygen metabolism responses to functional tasks.