Functionally and structurally defined cortical networks for repetition of words and pseudowords

Introduction: Impairment of repetition with frequent phonemic paraphasias and preserved language comprehension is defined as conduction aphasia. This impairment implies the existence of a neural network for repetition. The aim of our study was to identify the functional nodes and structural connections forming a cortical network for repetition. Methods: 30 healthy subjects (mean age 34±15 y; 16 male; 17 right-handed) performed an event-related fMRI repetition task by overtly repeating a total of 120 aurally presented words and pseudo words. From peak voxels of a random effect analysis, raw data was extracted and…