A functional magnetic resonance imaging study of language processing and its cognitive correlates in prematurely born children.

OBJECTIVE: Abnormalities in brain structure, cognition, and behavior have been described in children born prematurely. However, no direct in vivo evidence has yet demonstrated abnormal neural processing in these children. Our aim was to compare brain activity associated with phonologic and semantic processing of language between term and preterm children using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

METHODS: fMRI scans were acquired during a passive language comprehension task in 26 preterm children at 8 years of age and in 13 term community control children who were comparable in age, sex, maternal education, and minority status. IQ was assessed using a standard measure of intelligence.

RESULTS: The pattern of brain activity identified in a semantic processing task in the preterm children closely resembled the pattern of brain activity identified in a phonologic processing task in term controls. The greater this resemblance in the preterm children, the lower their verbal comprehension IQ scores and the poorer their language comprehension during the scanning task.

CONCLUSIONS: Preterm children with the poorest language comprehension seemed not to fully engage normal semantic processing pathways in a language comprehension task. These children instead engaged pathways that normal term children used to process meaningless phonologic sounds. Aberrant processing of semantic content in these preterm children may account in part for their lower verbal IQ scores.