Investigation of Lateralization Effect in Prefrontal Cortex Activation During Verbal Fluency Test by Near Infrared Spectroscopy

Neuropsychological tests are used to determine the lesion effect in many neurological and psychiatric disorders or to follow the situation of the patient. In recent years it has been shown that examining the haemodynamic changes of the cortex during these tests gives better results. One of the methods used in this monitoring is the functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy. In the study, hemodynamic changes in the cortex of 10 healthy subjects were recorded during the Verbal Fluency Test (both semantic and phonetic) with the near Infrared Spectroscopy system and the results were examined to determine the lateralization. During the test, activation of the prefrontal cortex was examined by laterelisation index and left hemisphere showed more activation. Findings obtained in the study are consistent with the literature and contribute to the formation of normative data for Turkish society.