Dissociating neural subsystems for grammar by contrasting word order and inflection

While in lecture it was mentioned how Wernicke's and Broca's area were used for the integration of spoken language. It occurred to me that not all language was spoken, and I was curious how sign language was interpreted by the brain and it led to this article. It is about how different parts of the brain are used for different grammatical structure.

Researches from the University of Rochester conducted a study on if there were distinct neural mechanisms for processing different grammatical structure(word order or inflection). Since most languages typically use only one method the researchers used native signers of American Sign Language which can use both grammar structures. The subjects viewed sentences being signed to them while under fMRI. The sentences either used solely word order or inflection grammatical structure.

Reliance on word order (serial position) cues for resolving grammatical dependencies activated a network of areas related to serial working memory. In contrast, the presence of inflectional morphology increased activation in a broadly distributed bilateral network featuring the inferior frontal gyri, the anterior lateral temporal lobes, and the basal ganglia, which have been implicated in building and analyzing grammatical structure.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1003174107