gms | German Medical Science

68th Annual Meeting of the German Society of Neurosurgery (DGNC)
7th Joint Meeting with the British Neurosurgical Society (SBNS)

German Society of Neurosurgery (DGNC)

14 - 17 May 2017, Magdeburg

The influence of brain tumor location on functional reorganisatory processes of the language system

Meeting Abstract

  • Katharina Rosengarth - Universitätsklinikum Regensburg, Klinik und Poliklinik für Neurochirurgie, Regensburg, Deutschland
  • Frank Dodoo-Schittko - Universitätsklinikum Regensburg, Institut für Epidemiologie und Versorgungsforschung, Regensburg, Deutschland
  • Christian Doenitz - Universitätsklinikum Regensburg, Klinik und Poliklinik für Neurochirurgie, Regensburg, Deutschland
  • Lisa Forster - Universität Regensburg, Institut für Allgemeine und Experimentelle Psychologie, Regensburg, Deutschland
  • Mark Greenlee - Universität Regensburg, Institut für Allgemeine und Experimentelle Psychologie, Regensburg, Deutschland
  • Alexander Brawanski - Universitätsklinikum Regensburg, Klinik und Poliklinik für Neurochirurgie, Regensburg, Deutschland

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie. Society of British Neurological Surgeons. 68. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie (DGNC), 7. Joint Meeting mit der Society of British Neurological Surgeons (SBNS). Magdeburg, 14.-17.05.2017. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2017. DocMi.18.08

doi: 10.3205/17dgnc491, urn:nbn:de:0183-17dgnc4919

Published: June 9, 2017

© 2017 Rosengarth et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. See license information at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.


Outline

Text

Objective: Lesions caused by brain tumors in language critical areas may lead to changes in the functional networks associated with language function. Since the language network is widely spread over several brain areas in both hemispheres there might be an influence of the specific tumor location on those reorganisatory changes. Therefore this study aims to investigate a possible relationship of brain tumor location and reorganisatory processes of the language system.

Methods: To assess the influence of brain tumor location on language associated brain activation a total sample of 60 patients with brain tumors in language critical areas of the left hemisphere was stratified in a group with tumors in the inferior frontal gyrus (N=28), a group with tumors in posterior language areas encompassing the supramarginal and angular gyrus and the posterior lateral part of the superior temporal gyrus and sulcus (N=16; named as “posterior-temporal group”) while the last group showed tumors in the lateral anterior portion of the temporal lobe (N=16; (named as “anterior-temporal” group). Additionally data of 34 healthy subjects were included in the study. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was performed at a 3T Siemens Allegra Scanner. During the language fMRI paradigm subjects had to perform covertly a verb and a syntactic generation task. Data analysis was done by using SPM 12 including the Marsbar toolbox and the Automated Anatomical Labeling Atlas for region of interest (ROI) definition and analysis.

Results: The whole brain analysis reveals a significant enhancement in language associated activation in the right inferior frontal cortex for the whole patient group compared to controls, while controls show increased activation in right supramarginal and angular gyrus compared to tumor patients. Focusing on the further group differences, there is the finding that patients with posterior-temporal tumors show an increase in activation of the right supramarginal gyrus during the performing of language tasks compared with healthy controls and patients with anterior-temporal tumors. According to the ROI analysis the posterior-temporal group exhibits a significant decrease in activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus in contrast to healthy controls and the anterior-temporal patients group. All differences were apparent in both linguistic tasks (verb and sentence generation).

Conclusion: In line with the literature, the results of this study suggest a strong incorporation of the right hemisphere in language processing in patients with tumors in language critical areas. Furthermore we observed also left lateral reorganisatory processes in language critical areas which are not affected by the tumor. Thereby tumor location seems to be a predictor due to tumor induced neuroplastic changes of the language network.