Reviewing the functional neuroanatomy of sign language in deaf signers: An Activation Likelihood Estimation meta-analysis

Sign language processing (SLP) has been studied using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) for about 25 years. Deaf signers have been shown to recruit similar perisylvian regions for SLP as those identified in studies on verbal language. To date, the literature on sign language has only been reviewed qualitatively and the involvement of the right hemisphere in SLP remains subject to debate. Aims of the present study: 1. Investigate spatial convergence for fMRI and PET studies of SLP using Activation Likelihood Estimation. 2. Evaluate neuroanatomical localization and lateralization of converging clusters for SLP. 3. Dissociate linguistic and visuo-spatial processing when language is used in the visuo-gestural modality. 4. Assign robust functional associations to SLP regions using meta-analytic connectivity modeling