Regarding the neural basis of language comprehension, a linguistically based model of spoken language comprehension discriminates between segmental and suprasegmental information of speech (Friederici and Alter 2004).
In the current paper we report an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (ER-fMRI) experiment, in which we directly compared the cerebral basis of sentence comprehension on the one hand, and of abstract sequence processing on the other hand.
More interestingly, Wang and collaborators [33] have investigated the neural basis of irony comprehension in children and adolescents with High Functioning Autism by differentiating the role of prosody and the role of context.
When MEG and EEG were used to investigate the physiological basis of semantic comprehension processes, the action-word-induced activation of specific parts of the sensorimotor cortex revealed different activation times.
In line with previous studies on semantic aphasia, patients were selected on the basis of semantic comprehension deficits affecting both words and pictures using the Camel and Cactus task of semantic association (Bozeat et al., 2000).
Thus, the three processing stages that could be tentatively proposed to form the basis of speech act comprehension irrespective of the type of speech act are: (1) action and intention comprehension, (2) semantic processing, and (3) optional reprocessing of action information and aspects of ToM concerned with explicit self/other mental state analysis.
On the basis of this testing, comprehension was judged to be acceptable.
These processing stages interactively subserved by a dynamic network encompassing neural mechanisms of language, action perception and theory of mind may be the basis of speech act comprehension.
Hence, self-awareness as the basis of any kind of comprehension originated with the awareness that one's own being was organically embedded and interwoven with (rational) indeterminate, constitutive cosmic structures.
A genetic dysfunction of ionic channels may possibly explain neuronal abnormalities at both central and peripheral level in FM, opening a new scenario also in the comprehension of pathophysiological basis of associated conditions.
