Functional connectivity in task-negative network of the Deaf: effects of sign language experience

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1 Center for Mind, Brain, and Education, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX, USA
2 Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA
3 School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA
4 Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, and Linguistics Program, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.405v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Neuroscience
Keywords
functional connectivity, task-negative network, Deaf, sign language, American Sign Language, PCC, inferior parietal cortex, default network, medial temporal gyrus
Copyright
© 2014 Malaia et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Malaia E, Talavage TM, Wilbur RB. 2014. Functional connectivity in task-negative network of the Deaf: effects of sign language experience. PeerJ PrePrints 2:e405v1

Abstract

Prior studies investigating cortical processing in Deaf signers suggest that life-long experience with sign language and/or auditory deprivation may alter the brain’s anatomical structure and the function of brain regions typically recruited for auditory processing (Emmorey et al., 2010; Pénicaud, et al., 2012 inter alia). We report the first investigation of the task-negative network in Deaf signers and its functional connectivity – the temporal correlations among spatially remote neurophysiological events. We show that Deaf signers manifest increased functional connectivity between posterior cingulate/precuneus and left medial temporal gyrus (MTG), but also inferior parietal lobe and medial temporal gyrus in the right hemisphere- areas that have been found to show functional recruitment specifically during sign language processing. These findings suggest that the organization of the brain at the level of inter-network connectivity is likely affected by experience with processing visual language, although sensory deprivation could be another source of the difference. We hypothesize that connectivity alterations in the task negative network reflect predictive/automatized processing of the visual signal.