Recent event-related fMRI studies suggest that a left-lateralized network exists for reading Chinese words (to contrast two-character Chinese words and figures). In this study, the authors used a 3T fMRI to investigate brain activation when processing characters and figures in a visual discrimination task. Thirteen Chinese individuals were shown two Chinese characters (36 pairs) or two figures (36 pairs). The control task (two figures) was used to eliminate non-linguistic visual and motor confounds. The results showed that discrimination of Chinese characters is performed by a bilateral network that processes orthographic, phonological, and semantic features. Significant activation patterns were observed in the occipital region (BA17, 18, 19, and 37), temporal region (BA22 and 38), parietal region (BA7, 39, and 40), and frontal region (BA4, 6, 10, and 46) of the brain and in the cerebellum. The study concludes that a constellation of neural substrates provides a bilateral network that processes Chinese subjects.
