Comprehensive language mapping in children, using functional magnetic resonance imaging: what's missing counts.

Noninvasive language mapping is a frequently used application of functional magnetic resonance imaging. The examination of children, however, poses both practical and technical challenges. To this effect, we have developed two new paradigms mainly requiring passive listening to stories from which several key words were removed. Results were compared with a standard active verb-generation task, particularly with regard to hemispheric dominance in frontal brain areas. Fifteen healthy children (seven boys, eight girls, 6-14 years) were scanned. Distinct frontal activation was seen in our new tasks, which was stronger when the tasks were analyzed specifically with regard to the missing words. This confirms the hypothesis that the removal of these words is the key in inducing frontal activation. Frontal lateralization was consistent and strong in all three paradigms. Additionally, receptive language areas are also mapped by our new tasks. We conclude that our two new, child-friendly functional magnetic resonance imaging paradigms are useful in determining hemispheric dominance for language in children too young or too impaired to execute an active task. They also allow robust mapping of receptive language areas.