Semantic decision task over fluency task to assess language dominance in brain tumor patients Méndez Orellana C1, Arraño Carrasco L2, García Valenzuela M2, Mery Muñoz F3 1 Carrera de Fonoaudiología, Departamento Ciencias de la Salud, Facultad Medicina, Pontificia Universidad Católica, Chile 2 Departamento de Radiología, Facultad de Medicina,Pontificia Universidad Católica, Chile

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3 Departamento de Neurocirugía, Facultad de Medicina,Pontificia Universidad Católica, Chile

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

RESULTS

The verbal fluency (VF) task is a frequently common language task used to determine language lateralizaJon in brain tumor paJents. One of the disadvantage of this task however is that in-scanner performance cannot be controlled and it is a difficult task to be performed for paJents with language disorders. SemanJc decision (SA) task is an easy to implement task for paJents with language disorder and its design allows to control in-scanner performance. Crossed cerebro-cerebellar acJvaJon is a diagnosJc feature to determine language dominance in paJents with brain tumor but this paPern of crossed acJvaJon have been only explored with the VF task. In this study, we assessed the crossed cerebro-cerebellar language fMRI lateralizaJon in paJents with brain tumors with the verbal fluency task and a SA task to determine language lateralizaJon in brain tumor paJents.

There were no discordant findings between the VF and SA task Kappa 0.12 and 0.10 respecJvely. Both posiJvely idenJfied language representaJon in the cerebrum and cerebellum and showed similar results to determine language lateralizaJon.

Figure 1. Crossed cerebro-cerebellar language activation during a verbal fluency (a,b) and semantic decision task (c,d) on a patient with a right frontal-insula tumor (1) and a patient with a left frontal tumor (2).

MATERIALS AND METHODS Ten paJents with a brain tumor underwent fMRI with a verb-generaJon and a semanJc decision task. PaJents’ individual t-contrast images, thresholded individually but at a minimum t-value of 2, were assessed qualitaJvely by a neuroradiologist who was blinded to the task performed by the paJents. AcJvaJon was assessed in areas involved in language processing: the inferior frontal gyrus, superior temporal and middle temporal gyri, angular and supramarginal gyri, and the cerebellum. Cerebral and cerebellar language lateralizaJon were separately classified as leX-sided, right-sided,

CONCLUSIONS Both language tasks showed same paPerns of crossed cerebro-cerebellar acJvaJon in all paJents. Since SA task showed same paPerns of acJvaJon as the common used VF task, semanJc task can be preferred over the VF task to evaluate language dominance in paJents with language disorders.

Mendez Orellana, C., Visch-Brink, E. G., Vernooij, M., Kalloe, S., Satoer, D., Vincent, A., et al. (2015). Crossed Cerebrocerebellar Language LateralizaMon: An AddiMonal DiagnosMc Feature for Assessing Atypical Language RepresentaMon in Presurgical FuncMonal MR Imaging. Am J Neuroradiol, 36(3), 518–524. h[p://doi.org/10.3174/ajnr.A4147