Electrophysiology of normal and pathological language processing

The paper describes the three language-related event-related brain potentials (ERP) components: the N400 correlated with processes of semantic integration, the early mainly left accentuated anterior negativity correlated with initial structure building processes and the P600 reflecting processes of syntactic integration. These components are functionally specified with respect to normal comprehension. Moreover, the modulation of these components as well as their absence is discussed with respect to pathological language behavior. It is shown that the high temporal resolution of the ERP method allows not only to differentiate between early and late syntactic processes in normals, but also to specify the pathological changes of particular processes in patient groups. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.