WHEN deaf people communicate in sign language, they use areas of the brain
previously thought to be specific to speech, say researchers in Montreal.
Laura Ann Petitto at McGill University in Montreal and her colleagues studied
five profoundly deaf male volunteers and 10 hearing males, all of similar
educational level and fluency. PET scans revealed which parts of the volunteers’
brains were active while they performed tasks such as reproducing a sign or
written word, or changing nouns into verbs.
Petitto’s team found that the left inferior frontal cortex, a brain area that
was thought to be dedicated to finding…
