Tohoku University Cognitive Neuroscience Application Center

Using fMRI to examine linguistic theories, the collaborative research led by Professor Masatoshi Koizumi from the Graduate School of Arts and Letters at Tohoku University, titled “The crucial role of the left inferior frontal gyrus (BA44) in synergizing syntactic structure and information structure during sentence comprehension,” has been published in the international journal Brain and Language.

This study investigated how the brain integrates syntactic and information structures during sentence comprehension, focusing on Japanese sentences with different word orders (SOV and OSV). The findings revealed that the left inferior frontal gyrus (BA44) plays a crucial role in coordinating these processes.

The findings highlight the dynamic interplay between linguistic structures and informational structure in the human brain, contributing to a deeper understanding of the cognitive and neural foundations of language comprehension. Additionally, the study underscores the effectiveness of fMRI as a powerful tool for elucidating the neural mechanisms underlying language processing. (Jeong)

Jeong H, Kim JH, Yano M, Cui H, Kiayama S, Koizumi M. (2025). The crucial role of the left inferior frontal gyrus (BA44) in synergizing syntactic structure and information structure during sentence comprehension. Brain and Language, 2025, 262:105533
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2025.105533