Advance in Role of White Matter Tracts in Aphasia: Based on Dual Stream Language Model (review) / 中国康复理论与实践

ABSTRACT

Previous researches about the brain mechanism of aphasia mainly focused on the correspondence between cortical brain regions and language function. Now, more and more researches have found that the connection of white matter tracts in the brain plays an important role in language function. Dual-stream language model hypothesizes that the process of language can be considered as two parallel pathways, dorsal and ventral. The white matter fibers of dorsal stream include arcuate fasciculus and superior longitudinal fasciculi, which are mainly involved in the production of language. The white matter fibers of ventral stream include the inferior frontal-occipital fasciculus, inferior longitudinal fasciculus and uncinate fasciculus, which are mainly responsible for language understanding. The conception of connection mode and specific functional role of these fibers in the language network of patients with aphasia is helpful for the assessment of the features and severity of the patient's language dysfunction and outcome, to guide clinical precision rehabilitation. More researches are needed to elaborate the interaction between the dorsal and ventral streams to well know the brain's language network processing mechanism.