MAPPING OF LANGUAGE BRAIN AREAS IN PATIENTS WITH BRAIN TUMOUR USING MEG

Language cortex in the human brain shows high variability among normal
individuals. Particularly, in the presence ofbrain tumors, language specific areas may
also be shifted from their original positions because of the growth of the tumor.
Mapping the precise location of language areas is important before surgery to avoid
causingpostoperative languagedeficitsespeciallywhen the surgery is performed in the
left hemisphere whichhas greaterrepresentation oflanguage functions in most ofright
handed people. The main goal of this study is to identify brain areas associated with
silent reading among different Malay patients with left brain tumors using
magnetoencephalography (MEG). Given the complexity of language function and the
expected variability associated with the presence of brain tumors, we undertook this
study. Six brain tumor patients underwentMEG recording and MRI scanning.