An FMRI Study On The Correlation Of Chinese Semantic And Phonemic Fluency Tests With Executive Function

Verbal fluency,which measures the flow of speech output,has been widely used to measure the language function of healthy individuals and patients with speech disorders.Pathological and empirical studies on Indo-European languages have found that semantic fluency tests and phonemic fluency tests have a certain neural separation,that is,semantic fluency is related to semantic memory and semantic knowledge,and depends on the temporal lobe.Phonemic fluency is related to executive function and is dependent on the frontal lobe.Some researchers even directly reflect the level of executive function by phonemic fluency.However,whether the above explanation can be established is still controversial,and Chinese studies are also lacking.In order to explore the separation and correlation between semantic fluency and phonemic fluency in Chinese and executive function,we collected functional imaging data from 26 healthy Chinese native speakers during semantic fluency,phonemic fluency,and color-shape switching tasks.The results showed that semantic fluency test activated the left superior frontal gyrus,the middle frontal gyrus,the inferior frontal gyrus,the left inferior temporal gyrus,the left temporo-occipital fusoid gyrus,the bilateral temporal poles,and the bilateral insula.The phonological fluency test activated the left superior frontal gyrus,middle frontal gyrus,inferior frontal gyrus,left inferior temporal gyrus,left anterior central gyrus,and bilateral insula.There was also a large overlap between the two regions and the activation regions of switching cost in the color-shape switching task,mainly in the left inferior frontal gyrus,left middle frontal gyrus,left frontal pole and left cingulate gyrus,and there was a significant correlation between the BOLD signal of these four co-activation regions.Further,we have to all participants nuclear magnetic experiment was carried out after the return of verbal fluency test,and record the specific word production situation of subjects,then extract the effective capacity word,word repetition rate,the15 seconds before the production quantity and the first word reaction time of the four behavior index did correlation analysis with the imaging data of switching cost.The previous NMR data results are supplemented and explained from the perspective of behavioral science.The results showed that the activation intensity of the left middle frontal gyrus(switching cost)was negatively correlated with the effective word production in phonemic fluency test and the effective word production in the first 15 seconds,but positively correlated with the initial word response time.The activation intensity of left middle frontal gyrus(switching cost)was positively correlated with the first word response time in semantic fluency test,while the activation intensity of left cingulate gyrus(switching cost)and left frontal pole(switching cost)was negatively correlated with word repetition rate in semantic fluency test.These results suggest that semantic fluency and phonemic fluency in Chinese not only have neural separation,but also have a large area of brain overlap,both of which are related to executive function.This study provides a neuroimaging reference for the clinical diagnosis and related studies of speech fluency test.