• Eini Niskanen, Mervi Könönen, Ville Villberg, Mikko Nissi, Perttu Ranta-Aho, Laura Säisänen, Pasi Karjalainen, Marja Aikiä, Reetta Kälviäinen, Esa Mervaala, and Ritva Vanninen.
• Department of Applied Physics, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland. Eini.Niskanen@kuh.fi
• Neuroradiology. 2012 Apr 1; 54 (4): 393-405.

IntroductionThe purpose of this study is to establish the most suitable combination of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) language tasks for clinical use in determining language dominance and to define the variability in laterality index (LI) and activation power between different combinations of language tasks.MethodsActivation patterns of different fMRI analyses of five language tasks (word generation, responsive naming, letter task, sentence comprehension, and word pair) were defined for 20 healthy volunteers (16 right-handed). LIs and sums of T values were calculated for each task separately and for four combinations of tasks in predefined regions of interest. Variability in terms of activation power and lateralization was defined in each analysis. In addition, the visual assessment of lateralization of language functions based on the individual fMRI activation maps was conducted by an experienced neuroradiologist.ResultsA combination analysis of word generation, responsive naming, and sentence comprehension was the most suitable in terms of activation power, robustness to detect essential language areas, and scanning time. In general, combination analyses of the tasks provided higher overall activation levels than single tasks and reduced the number of outlier voxels disturbing the calculation of LI.ConclusionsA combination of auditory and visually presented tasks that activate different aspects of language functions with sufficient activation power may be a useful task battery for determining language dominance in patients.

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