Computational Neuroscience of Language Processing in the Human Brain
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In plain language
An automatic summary of structured registry data. It is an orientation aid, not a substitute for the official protocol or a physician assessment.
- What is being studied
- The protocol lists: Behavioral tasks during intracranial monitoring.
- Who it may be relevant to
- Registry conditions: Language, Epilepsy. Basic parameters: 18 years — 85 years · All.
- What needs checking
- Age, condition and sex are only basic indicators. Prior treatment, laboratory values and other mandatory requirements appear in the eligibility criteria below.
- Where it takes place
- United States
- Next step
- Save the trial, show it to the treating physician, and confirm current recruitment with the study center. Costs, documents and travel →
Unsure about the terms? Read our patient guide →
Overview
Language is a signature human cognitive skill, but the precise computations that support language understanding remain unknown. This study aims to combine high-quality human neural data obtained through intracranial recordings with advances in computational modeling of human cognition to shed light on the construction and understanding of speech.
Detailed description
The neural architecture of language is the foundation for the highest form of human interaction. Prior work has identified a network of frontal and temporal brain areas that selectively support language processing, but the precise computations that underlie our ability to extract meaning from sequences of words have remained unknown. The standard approaches in human cognitive neuroscience lack the spatial and temporal resolution necessary for precise comparisons to computational models. To bridge this gap in knowledge, neural responses to language stimuli will be collected from epileptic patients undergoing intracranial monitoring. Overall, these data will be used to identify cortical maps of different linguistic manipulations and to better understand properties of the human language network.
Interventions
- Other Behavioral tasks during intracranial monitoring
Participants will listen to sentences and stories while neural data are recorded through electrodes placed for clinical purposes.
Primary outcome measures
- Cortical maps of linguistic responses [Time frame: Throughout intracranial monitoring period, up to approximately 10 days]
- Neural time-courses during naturalistic language comprehension [Time frame: Throughout intracranial monitoring period, up to approximately 10 days]
- Brain scores for diverse artificial neural network (ANN) language models [Time frame: Throughout intracranial monitoring period, up to approximately 10 days]
Eligibility criteria
Inclusion criteria
- clinical indications to proceed with intracranial monitoring involving the left cerebral hemisphere, as determined by a multidisciplinary epilepsy surgery team
- the ability to comply with test directions and provide informed consent
- between ages 18 - 85
Exclusion criteria
- inability to understand or perform the task outlined in the protocol, or who are unwilling or unable to participate
Criteria are shown verbatim from the registry (in English). Final eligibility is always assessed by the study center.
Healthy volunteers: No
Study design
- Allocation
- N/A
- Model
- Single group
- Masking
- Open label
- Primary purpose
- Basic science
Study locations
United States · 1 center
- Massachusetts General Hospital — Boston
Publications
- Blank I, Balewski Z, Mahowald K, Fedorenko E. Syntactic processing is distributed across the language system. Neuroimage. 2016 Feb 15;127:307-323. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.11.069. Epub 2015 Dec 5. PMID 26666896
- Blank IA, Fedorenko E. No evidence for differences among language regions in their temporal receptive windows. Neuroimage. 2020 Oct 1;219:116925. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116925. Epub 2020 May 11. PMID 32407994
- Fedorenko E, Behr MK, Kanwisher N. Functional specificity for high-level linguistic processing in the human brain. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2011 Sep 27;108(39):16428-33. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1112937108. Epub 2011 Sep 1. PMID 21885736
- Fedorenko E, Blank IA. Broca's Area Is Not a Natural Kind. Trends Cogn Sci. 2020 Apr;24(4):270-284. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2020.01.001. Epub 2020 Feb 20. PMID 32160565
- Fedorenko E, Duncan J, Kanwisher N. Language-selective and domain-general regions lie side by side within Broca's area. Curr Biol. 2012 Nov 6;22(21):2059-62. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2012.09.011. Epub 2012 Oct 11. PMID 23063434
- Fedorenko E, Hsieh PJ, Nieto-Castanon A, Whitfield-Gabrieli S, Kanwisher N. New method for fMRI investigations of language: defining ROIs functionally in individual subjects. J Neurophysiol. 2010 Aug;104(2):1177-94. doi: 10.1152/jn.00032.2010. Epub 2010 Apr 21. PMID 20410363
- Fedorenko E, Nieto-Castanon A, Kanwisher N. Lexical and syntactic representations in the brain: an fMRI investigation with multi-voxel pattern analyses. Neuropsychologia. 2012 Mar;50(4):499-513. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.09.014. Epub 2011 Sep 17. PMID 21945850
- Fedorenko E, Scott TL, Brunner P, Coon WG, Pritchett B, Schalk G, Kanwisher N. Neural correlate of the construction of sentence meaning. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2016 Oct 11;113(41):E6256-E6262. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1612132113. Epub 2016 Sep 26. PMID 27671642
Identifiers
NCT: NCT05222594 · 2020P001989