The language is a key factor that distinguishes us as human beings. Although some brain regions are known to be associated with language, neuroscientists have taken a time to use the technology of brain imaging to understand exactly what these “areas of language” are doing. In a new study published in the Journal of Neurophysiology, MIT neuroscientists reported a new method to analyze data from brain imaging and understanding how our brain produces and understands language.
Research with patients who developed specific language deficits (such as the inability to understand passive sentences) after brain injury suggest that the different aspects of language may reside in different parts of the brain. But attempts to find these functionally specific brain regions with current neuroimaging technologies have been inconsistent and controversial.
One reason for this discrepancy may be due to the fact that most previous studies were based on analysis of a group of people in which brain imaging data were averaged across multiple subjects – a calculation that could introduce noise statistical biases in the analysis. In other words, the brain differ in their folding patterns and functional form of the areas mapped in these folds.
On why we need to “align the brains” to get accurate data from studies of MRI scans. “Some brain regions appear to be involved in the curiously lenguajey are also geographically close to regions that support other cognitive processes such as music, mathematics, or general working memory.
The only way to solve this problem, the authors say, is to first define “regions of interest” in each area and after investigating these regions by examining their responses to several new tasks. To do this, they developed a routine “locator” where the subjects read sentences with proper sentences or sequences of words unspoken.
Sample sentences: The dog chased the cat all day. By subtracting the non-linguistic regions activated in the regions activated by the correct phrase, the researchers found a number of regions “language” that were identified quickly and reliably in individual brains.
“This new method more sensitive and allows us to now explore the questions of functional specificity between language and other cognitive functions, as well as between the different aspects of language,” the authors conclude. “It’s more likely to discover that the patches of the cortex is specialized in language and that also support other cognitive functions such as music and working memory. ” Understanding the relationship between language and the rest of the state is one of the key questions of cognitive neuroscience. ”
