Localising memory retrieval and syntactic composition: an fMRI study of naturalistic language comprehension

Bhattasali, Shohini; Fabre, Murielle; Luh, Wen‐Ming; Saied, Hazem Al; Constant, Mathieu; Pallier, Christophe; Brennan, Jonathan; Spreng, R. Nathan; Hale, John

doi:10.1080/23273798.2018.1518533

Cited by 48 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 113 publications

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“…Previously, conflicting evidence from studies in monolinguals had led to a range of different conclusions and models of comprehension: from left lateralized to partly bilateral, bilateral, or right-lateralized function ( Booth et al, 2000 ; Gaillard et al, 2003 ; Jung-Beeman, 2005 ; Hickok and Poeppel, 2007 ; Lidzba et al, 2011 ). Few studies have compared different modalities in the same participants, and, though lateralization was seen to be highly modality-dependent in the current study, it did not appear to depend on the exact task used, since lateralization for the single-word overt tasks in the current study was consistent with results from far more complex discourse-level covert tasks in previous studies ( Dehaene et al, 1997 ; Lidzba et al, 2011 ; Bhattasali et al, 2019 ). There were also subtle differences between the two experiments, with similar Ln lateralization but differing central tendencies for L1 laterality.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

“…These were avoided in the current study, and interpretations were based on the robust patterns of results verified by corroborating analyses that were replicated in contrasting experiments. However, the current study used classical single-word tasks, and while the lateralization results were consistent with the findings from far more complex comprehension tasks ( Dehaene et al, 1997 ; Lidzba et al, 2011 ; Bhattasali et al, 2019 ), future studies are needed to establish whether the results presented in the current study would be as or possibly even more pronounced in sentence/discourse processing ( Hagoort, 2019 ). Further, a priori power analysis was not conducted, nor was a replication sample examined.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

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Converging Evidence for Differential Specialization and Plasticity of Language Systems

et al. 2020

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Functional specialization and plasticity are fundamental organizing principles of the brain. Since the mid-1800s, certain cognitive functions have been known to be lateralized, but the provenance and flexibility of hemispheric specialization remain open questions. Language is a uniquely human phenomenon that requires a delicate balance between neural specialization and plasticity, and language learning offers the perfect window to study these principles in the human brain. In the current study, we conducted two separate functional MRI experiments with language learners (male and female), one cross-sectional and one longitudinal, involving distinct populations and languages, and examined hemispheric lateralization and learning-dependent plasticity of the following three language systems: reading, speech comprehension, and verbal production. A multipronged analytic approach revealed a highly consistent pattern of results across the two experiments, showing (1) that in both native and non-native languages, while language production was left lateralized, lateralization for language comprehension was highly variable across individuals; and (2) that with increasing non-native language proficiency, reading and speech comprehension displayed substantial changes in hemispheric dominance, with languages tending to lateralize to opposite hemispheres, while production showed negligible change and remained left lateralized. These convergent results shed light on the long-standing debate of neural organization of language by establishing robust principles of lateralization and plasticity of the main language systems. Findings further suggest involvement of the sensorimotor systems in language lateralization and its plasticity.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTThe human brain exhibits a remarkable ability to support a vast variety of languages that may be acquired at different points in the life span. Language is a complex construct involving linguistic as well as visual, auditory, and motor processes. Using functional MRI, we examined hemispheric specialization and learning-dependent plasticity of three language systems—reading, speech comprehension, and verbal production—in cross-sectional and longitudinal experiments in language learners. A multipronged analytic approach revealed converging evidence for striking differences in hemispheric specialization and plasticity among the language systems. The results have major theoretical and practical implications for our understanding of fundamental principles of neural organization of language, language testing and recovery in patients, and language learning in healthy populations.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

Converging Evidence for Differential Specialization and Plasticity of Language Systems

et al. 2020

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“…Therefore, they cannot be separated from other aspects regarding language comprehension, like lexico‐semantic processing (Blank, Balewski, Mahowald, & Fedorenko, 2016), overall suggesting that the language network might be more strongly concerned with meaning than structure (Siegelman, Blank, Mineroff, & Fedorenko, 2019). Yet, as an attempt to address this issue, we plan to integrate, in a future release, a naturalistic language‐comprehension paradigm, dedicated to syntactic‐composition modulation (Bhattasali et al, 2019). The more tasks are included in the dataset, the greater the richness of the contrasts that can be used to not only disambiguate the cognitive role of functional regions but also delineate finer demarcations of their anatomical boundaries.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Subject‐specific segregation of functional territories based on deep phenotyping

Pinho

Amadon

Fabre

et al. 2020

Human Brain Mapping

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Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has opened the possibility to investigate how brain activity is modulated by behavior. Most studies so far are bound to one single task, in which functional responses to a handful of contrasts are analyzed and reported as a group average brain map. Contrariwise, recent data‐collection efforts have started to target a systematic spatial representation of multiple mental functions. In this paper, we leverage the Individual Brain Charting (IBC) dataset—a high‐resolution task‐fMRI dataset acquired in a fixed environment—in order to study the feasibility of individual mapping. First, we verify that the IBC brain maps reproduce those obtained from previous, large‐scale datasets using the same tasks. Second, we confirm that the elementary spatial components, inferred across all tasks, are consistently mapped within and, to a lesser extent, across participants. Third, we demonstrate the relevance of the topographic information of the individual contrast maps, showing that contrasts from one task can be predicted by contrasts from other tasks. At last, we showcase the benefit of contrast accumulation for the fine functional characterization of brain regions within a prespecified network. To this end, we analyze the cognitive profile of functional territories pertaining to the language network and prove that these profiles generalize across participants.

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“…These are processed bilaterally in 'language regions', with varying contribution of the left and right hemisphere as a function of, among other things, familiarity [139][140][141][142][143][144][145] . Furthermore, the more familiar [146][147][148][149][150][151][152] , frequent [153][154][155][156][157] , compositional ('red boat' vs 'cup boat') or coherent multiword expressions are 158,159 , the less 'language regions' tend to be active. Some studies show that sensorimotor activity is more strongly associated with high frequency words, word composition and impairments of word composition 160,161 while the basal ganglia are less active for higher frequency words 157,162 .…”

Section: Comprehensionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reorganization of the neurobiology of language after sentence overlearning

Skipper

Aliko

Brown

et al. 2020

Preprint

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There is a widespread assumption that there are a static set of ‘language regions’ in the brain. Yet, people still regularly produce familiar ‘formulaic’ expressions when those regions are severely damaged. This suggests that the neurobiology of language varies with the extent of word sequence learning and might not be fixed. We test the hypothesis that perceiving sentences is mostly supported by sensorimotor regions involved in speech production and not ‘language regions’ after overlearning. Twelve participants underwent two sessions of behavioural testing and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), separated by 15 days. During this period, they repeated two sentences 30 times each, twice a day. In both fMRI sessions, participants ‘passively’ listened to those two sentences and novel sentences. Lastly, they spoke novel sentences. Behavioural results confirm that participants overlearned sentences. Correspondingly, there was an increase or recruitment of sensorimotor regions involved in sentence production and a reduction in activity or inactivity for overlearned sentences in regions involved in listening to novel sentences. The global network organization of the brain changed by ∼45%, mostly through lost connectivity. Thus, there was a profound reorganization of the neurobiology of speech perception after overlearning towards sensorimotor regions not considered in most contemporary models and away from the ‘language regions’ posited by those models. These same sensorimotor regions are generally preserved in aphasia and Alzheimer’s disease, perhaps explaining residual abilities with formulaic language. These and other results warrant reconsidering static neurobiological models of language.

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Localising memory retrieval and syntactic composition: an fMRI study of naturalistic language comprehension

Cited by 48 publications

References 113 publications

Converging Evidence for Differential Specialization and Plasticity of Language Systems

Converging Evidence for Differential Specialization and Plasticity of Language Systems

Subject‐specific segregation of functional territories based on deep phenotyping

Reorganization of the neurobiology of language after sentence overlearning

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