Male, 29 years old, with intractable epilepsy, fMRI needed for surgical planning. Sensorimotor cortical activation of the hand, foot and face maps as expected along the junction of the frontal and parietal lobes, functionally defining the pre- and post-central gyri which are otherwise somewhat anatomically ambiguous. Passive visual stimulation produces cortical activation as expected along the bilateral calcarine sulci.Of the tested language paradigms, the most reliable language related cortical activation is seen with the word generation, verb generation, and sentence completion paradigms. Language is left dominant but with significant contributions from the right hemisphere on certain paradigms. For example, prominent Wernicke's area activity is seen on the right with the word generation paradigm. Cortical activation correlating to the putative Broca's area is seen on all paradigms localizing to the inferior left frontal gyrus, primarily the pars triangularis and pars orbitalis. Cortical activation correlating to the putative Wernicke's area is seen best on word generation and verb generation paradigms localizing along the posterior aspect of the superior temporal sulcus.
Sensorimotor cortical activation related to hand, foot and face/tongue motion is seen bilaterally, functionally defining the somewhat anatomically ambiguous pre- and post-central gyri. Visual cortical stimulation induces cortical activation along the calcarine sulci bilaterally.Language is left dominant, though there are significant contributions from the right hemisphere which vary depending on the language task performed. Broca's and Wernicke's areas localize to their expected locations as above.