Functional Specificity for High-level Linguistic Processing in the Human Brain

Overview

Journal Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A

Specialty Science

Date 2011 Sep 3

PMID 21885736

Citations 229

Authors

Evelina Fedorenko

Michael K Behr

Nancy Kanwisher

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Neuroscientists have debated for centuries whether some regions of the human brain are selectively engaged in specific high-level mental functions or whether, instead, cognition is implemented in multifunctional brain regions. For the critical case of language, conflicting answers arise from the neuropsychological literature, which features striking dissociations between deficits in linguistic and nonlinguistic abilities, vs. the neuroimaging literature, which has argued for overlap between activations for linguistic and nonlinguistic processes, including arithmetic, domain general abilities like cognitive control, and music. Here, we use functional MRI to define classic language regions functionally in each subject individually and then examine the response of these regions to the nonlinguistic functions most commonly argued to engage these regions: arithmetic, working memory, cognitive control, and music. We find little or no response in language regions to these nonlinguistic functions. These data support a clear distinction between language and other cognitive processes, resolving the prior conflict between the neuropsychological and neuroimaging literatures.

Citing Articles

Brain areas for reversible symbolic reference, a potential singularity of the human brain.

van Kerkoerle T, Pape L, Ekramnia M, Feng X, Tasserie J, Dupont M Elife. 2025; 12.

PMID: 39937096 PMC: 11820117. DOI: 10.7554/eLife.87380.

Noninvasive Brain Stimulation over the Frontopolar Cortex Promotes Willingness to Exert Cognitive Effort in a Foraging-Like Sequential Choice Task.

Bogdanov M, Bustamante L, Devine S, Sheldon S, Otto A J Neurosci. 2025; 45(10).

PMID: 39819513 PMC: 11884395. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0647-24.2024.

The Dimensionality of Neural Coding for Cognitive Control Is Gradually Transformed within the Lateral Prefrontal Cortex.

Chiou R, Duncan J, Jefferies E, Lambon Ralph M J Neurosci. 2024; 45(6).

PMID: 39663116 PMC: 11800757. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0233-24.2024.

The human social cognitive network contains multiple regions within the amygdala.

Edmonds D, Salvo J, Anderson N, Lakshman M, Yang Q, Kay K Sci Adv. 2024; 10(47):eadp0453.

PMID: 39576857 PMC: 11584017. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adp0453.

The language network ages well: Preserved selectivity, lateralization, and within-network functional synchronization in older brains.

Billot A, Jhingan N, Varkanitsa M, Blank I, Ryskin R, Kiran S bioRxiv. 2024; .

PMID: 39484368 PMC: 11527140. DOI: 10.1101/2024.10.23.619954.

References

Cohen J, Forman S, Braver T, Casey B, Servan-Schreiber D, Noll D . Activation of the prefrontal cortex in a nonspatial working memory task with functional MRI. Hum Brain Mapp. 2014; 1(4):293-304. DOI: 10.1002/hbm.460010407. View

Amunts K, Lenzen M, Friederici A, Schleicher A, Morosan P, Palomero-Gallagher N . Broca's region: novel organizational principles and multiple receptor mapping. PLoS Biol. 2010; 8(9). PMC: 2943440. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1000489. View

Dehaene S, Spelke E, Pinel P, Stanescu R, Tsivkin S . Sources of mathematical thinking: behavioral and brain-imaging evidence. Science. 1999; 284(5416):970-4. DOI: 10.1126/science.284.5416.970. View

Badre D, Poldrack R, Pare-Blagoev E, Insler R, Wagner A . Dissociable controlled retrieval and generalized selection mechanisms in ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. Neuron. 2005; 47(6):907-18. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2005.07.023. View

Kanwisher N . Functional specificity in the human brain: a window into the functional architecture of the mind. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010; 107(25):11163-70. PMC: 2895137. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1005062107. View

Patterson R, Uppenkamp S, Johnsrude I, Griffiths T . The processing of temporal pitch and melody information in auditory cortex. Neuron. 2002; 36(4):767-76. DOI: 10.1016/s0896-6273(02)01060-7. View

Braze D, Mencl W, Tabor W, Pugh K, Constable R, Fulbright R . Unification of sentence processing via ear and eye: an fMRI study. Cortex. 2010; 47(4):416-31. PMC: 2889140. DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2009.11.005. View

Fadiga L, Craighero L, DAusilio A . Broca's area in language, action, and music. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2009; 1169:448-58. DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04582.x. View

Apperly I, Samson D, Carroll N, Hussain S, Humphreys G . Intact first- and second-order false belief reasoning in a patient with severely impaired grammar. Soc Neurosci. 2008; 1(3-4):334-48. DOI: 10.1080/17470910601038693. View

10.

Varley R, Klessinger N, Romanowski C, Siegal M . Agrammatic but numerate. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2005; 102(9):3519-24. PMC: 552916. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0407470102. View

11.

Neville H, Bavelier D, Corina D, Rauschecker J, Karni A, Lalwani A . Cerebral organization for language in deaf and hearing subjects: biological constraints and effects of experience. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1998; 95(3):922-9. PMC: 33817. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.95.3.922. View

12.

Pinel P, Van de Moortele P, Le Bihan D, Cohen L, Dehaene S . Understanding dissociations in dyscalculia: a brain imaging study of the impact of number size on the cerebral networks for exact and approximate calculation. Brain. 2000; 123 ( Pt 11):2240-55. DOI: 10.1093/brain/123.11.2240. View

13.

Juch H, Zimine I, L Seghier M, Lazeyras F, Fasel J . Anatomical variability of the lateral frontal lobe surface: implication for intersubject variability in language neuroimaging. Neuroimage. 2005; 24(2):504-14. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.08.037. View

14.

Fedorenko E, Hsieh P, Nieto-Castanon A, Whitfield-Gabrieli S, Kanwisher N . New method for fMRI investigations of language: defining ROIs functionally in individual subjects. J Neurophysiol. 2010; 104(2):1177-94. PMC: 2934923. DOI: 10.1152/jn.00032.2010. View

15.

Braver T, Cohen J, Nystrom L, Jonides J, Smith E, Noll D . A parametric study of prefrontal cortex involvement in human working memory. Neuroimage. 1997; 5(1):49-62. DOI: 10.1006/nimg.1996.0247. View

16.

Tomaiuolo F, MacDonald J, Caramanos Z, Posner G, Chiavaras M, Evans A . Morphology, morphometry and probability mapping of the pars opercularis of the inferior frontal gyrus: an in vivo MRI analysis. Eur J Neurosci. 1999; 11(9):3033-46. DOI: 10.1046/j.1460-9568.1999.00718.x. View

17.

Bush G, Shin L . The Multi-Source Interference Task: an fMRI task that reliably activates the cingulo-frontal-parietal cognitive/attention network. Nat Protoc. 2007; 1(1):308-13. DOI: 10.1038/nprot.2006.48. View

18.

January D, Trueswell J, Thompson-Schill S . Co-localization of stroop and syntactic ambiguity resolution in Broca's area: implications for the neural basis of sentence processing. J Cogn Neurosci. 2009; 21(12):2434-44. PMC: 2762484. DOI: 10.1162/jocn.2008.21179. View

19.

Saxe R, Brett M, Kanwisher N . Divide and conquer: a defense of functional localizers. Neuroimage. 2006; 30(4):1088-96. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2005.12.062. View

20.

Ullman M . Contributions of memory circuits to language: the declarative/procedural model. Cognition. 2004; 92(1-2):231-70. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2003.10.008. View