Cerebral Dominance for Human Language and Music

Abstract

Language is a higher brain function which is uniquely human ability. Since the 19th century, functional localization and differentiation of language in the cerebral cortex have been proposed. Recently, more detailed findings relating to functional localization and differentiation have been reported in studies involving functional imaging of the human brain. In the language areas, syntax, sentence comprehension, phonology and lexico-semantic centers are divided as functional modules which correspond to the left dorsal inferior frontal gyrus, ventral inferior frontal gyrus, superior temporal gyrus, and angular/supramarginal gyrus, respectively. Moreover, all of these four regions are basically left-dominant. Meanwhile, we have recently examined melody processing in comparison with language processing, and have found right-dominance in the activations of the auditory areas. It is interesting to note that the higher brain functions related to uniquely human abilities showed such differential hemispheric dominances.