Male, 20 years old, with intractable epilepsy, presurgical planning evaluation. Sensorimotor cortical activation of the hand, foot and face maps as expected along the pre- and post-central gyri. Passive visual stimulation produces cortical activity centered on the 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 strongly left dominant on all tested paradigms. Putative Broca's area activity is seen within the left inferior frontal gyrus, mostly pars opercularis. Putative Wernicke's area activity is seen along the posterior aspect of the left superior temporal gyrus. This area of activation is slightly more superiorly positioned than what is typically seen, as it falls closer to the sylvian fissure than to the superior temporal sulcus. However, it is consistently visualized on all three language paradigms and there are no other foci of activation to indicate Wernicke's area.
1.Technically successful functional MRI for presurgical assessment of sensorimotor and language functionality.2.Sensorimotor cortical activation maps as expected along the pre- and post-central gyri. Visual cortical activation maps as expected in the occipital lobes.3.Language is left dominant with Broca's and Wernicke's areas identified as above.