Function segregation in the left inferior frontal gyrus: a listening functional magnetic resonance imaging study.

Function segregation in the left inferior frontal gyrus was investigated in a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment using a passive listening task, in which Japanese volunteers were required to passively listen to words and nonsense words in Japanese and English. The statistical analysis results showed that the dorsal part of the left inferior frontal gyrus was more extensively activated by listening to English words and nonsense words than to those of Japanese, respectively, which suggests automatic articulatory representation access for non-native stimuli perception, and that the ventral part was more extensively activated by listening to English and Japanese words than to nonsense words in either language, which suggests a lexical or semantic processing function.