Neurobiology of the reading system

前额叶(ATL)在例外词阅读中的作用一直是语言神经生物学领域激烈争论的主题。这种含糊不清的现象仍然存在，主要是因为患者数据和健康受试者的神经成像研究提供了相互矛盾的结果。患者数据一直表明，阅读例外词的能力是由语义记忆系统(即负责概念性知识的记忆系统)调节的，并与前颞叶的完整性有关。然而，对健康受试者的功能成像研究未能证实这些发现，也没有显示出在例外单词阅读过程中显著的ATL激活。

The role of the anterior temporal lobes (ATLs) in the reading of exception words (i.e. words with atypical spelling-to-sound correspondence, such as 'yatch' and 'colonel') has been subject of intense debate in the field of neurobiology of language. This obscurity remains primarily because patient data and neuroimaging studies on healthy subjects have provided contradictory results. Patient data have consistently shown that the ability to read exception words is mediated by the semantic memory system (i.e., the memory system that is responsible for conceptual knowledge) and is associated with the integrity of the anterior temporal lobes. However, functional imaging studies on healthy subjects have failed to confirm these findings and have shown no significant ATL activation during exception word reading.