A Neuroimaging Study of Premotor Lateralization and Cerebellar Involvement in the Production of Phonemes and Syllables

The finding of left-lateralized premotor cortex activity supports the DIVA model prediction that this area contains cell populations representing syllable motor programs without regard for semantic content. Furthermore, the superior paravermal cerebellum is more active for consonant-vowel syllables compared with vowels, perhaps due to increased timing constraints for consonant production.