However, protection is not optimal for sensory systems because their external components need to be exposed to the environment to fulfill their receptive function.
Further, the language deficit encountered after anterior temporal lobe resection is commonly of word finding, and not of receptive function (Barr, 2009).
These cells are not believed to have a receptive function, but to play a more glial-like role in the taste bud [ 1, 2].
Secondary outcomes include performance on four ability areas including neurological functions/intactness, receptive functions, expressive functions, and cognitive processes (measured by the BINS), speech (measured by REEL), height changes, hearing, timing of cleft surgery, mortality, refinement in syndromic status classification, and emotional, social, and economic performance of the family.
Subgroup analysis demonstrated that patients with significantly altered connectivity also demonstrated poorer receptive language function.
These dissociable effects may offer a basis for studying the reorganization of receptive language function after brain damage.
In the Connec group, better receptive language function was associated with maintenance of normal positive inter-temporal connectivity, coupled with increased activation in anterior left IFG.
In the Connec group, poorer receptive language function was associated with negative inter-temporal connectivity and a failure to increase left IFG activation.
However, though it might be useful to have a measure of receptive language function, crossed dominance is uncommon and damage to white matter tracts after surgery is as likely to affect frontal, as well as temporal, lobe functioning (Catani, 2007).
Subgroup analysis revealed that aphasic patients with preserved positive intertemporal connectivity displayed better receptive language function; these patients also showed greater than normal left inferior frontal gyrus activity, suggesting a possible 'top-down' compensatory mechanism.
By establishing functional connectivity between left and right anterolateral STC as a novel marker of receptive language function after aphasic stroke, this study paves the way for future work investigating the role of inter-temporal functional connectivity in the recovery and treatment of a variety of aphasic disorders.
