Language-related domain-specific and domain-general systems in the human brain

AbstractRecent functional MRI studies identified sensory-biased regions across much of the association cortices and cerebellum. However, their anatomical relationship to multiple-demand (MD) regions, characterized as domain-general due to their co-activation during multiple cognitive demands, remains unclear. For a better anatomical delineation, we used multimodal MRI techniques of the Human Connectome Project to scan subjects performing visual and auditory versions of a working memory (WM) task. The contrast between hard and easy WM showed strong domain generality, with essentially identical patterns of MD activity for visual and auditory materials. In contrast, modality preferences were shown by contrasting easy WM with baseline; most MD regions showed visual preference while immediately adjacent to cortical MD regions, there were interleaved regions of both visual and auditory preference. The results may exemplify a general motif whereby domain-specific regions feed information into and out of an adjacent, integrative MD core.

Download Full-text

The Adaptable Mind

10.1093/oso/9780190067885.001.0001 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

John Zerilli

Keyword(s):

Human Brain ◽

Domain Specific ◽

Neural Reuse ◽

Language Module

What conception of mental architecture can survive the evidence of neuroplasticity and neural reuse in the human brain? In particular, what sorts of modules are compatible with this evidence? This book shows how developmental and adult neuroplasticity, as well as evidence of pervasive neural reuse, force a revision to the standard conceptions of modularity and spell the end of a hardwired and dedicated language module. It argues from principles of both neural reuse and neural redundancy that language is facilitated by a composite of modules (or module-like entities), few if any of which are likely to be linguistically special, and that neuroplasticity provides evidence that (in key respects and to an appreciable extent) few if any of them ought to be considered developmentally robust, though their development does seem to be constrained by features intrinsic to particular regions of cortex (manifesting as domain-specific predispositions or acquisition biases). In the course of doing so, the book articulates a schematically and neurobiologically precise framework for understanding modules and their supramodular interactions.

Download Full-text

Language processing is not a race against time

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x15000692 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 39 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Giosuè Baggio ◽

Carmelo M. Vicario

Keyword(s):

Information Processing ◽

Human Brain ◽

Language Processing ◽

Cognitive Functions ◽

Memory Systems ◽

Language System ◽

Moderating Factors

AbstractWe agree with Christiansen & Chater (C&C) that language processing and acquisition are tightly constrained by the limits of sensory and memory systems. However, the human brain supports a range of cognitive functions that mitigate the effects of information processing bottlenecks. The language system is partly organised around these moderating factors, not just around restrictions on storage and computation.

Download Full-text

Structural and Chemical Studies of Pathological Fibers in Human Neurofibrillary Degeneration

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s042482010012031x ◽

1985 ◽

Vol 43 ◽

pp. 726-729

Author(s):

K.S. Kosik ◽

L.K. Duffy ◽

S. Bakalis ◽

C. Abraham ◽

D.J. Selkoe

Keyword(s):

Monoclonal Antibodies ◽

Alzheimer Disease ◽

Human Brain ◽

Neurofibrillary Tangles ◽

Morphological Analysis ◽

High Specificity ◽

Cytoskeletal Proteins ◽

Neuritic Plaque ◽

Protein Chemistry ◽

Chemical Studies

The major structural lesions of the human brain during aging and in Alzheimer disease (AD) are the neurofibrillary tangles (NFT) and the senile (neuritic) plaque. Although these fibrous alterations have been recognized by light microscopists for almost a century, detailed biochemical and morphological analysis of the lesions has been undertaken only recently. Because the intraneuronal deposits in the NFT and the plaque neurites and the extraneuronal amyloid cores of the plaques have a filamentous ultrastructure, the neuronal cytoskeleton has played a prominent role in most pathogenetic hypotheses.The approach of our laboratory toward elucidating the origin of plaques and tangles in AD has been two-fold: the use of analytical protein chemistry to purify and then characterize the pathological fibers comprising the tangles and plaques, and the use of certain monoclonal antibodies to neuronal cytoskeletal proteins that, despite high specificity, cross-react with NFT and thus implicate epitopes of these proteins as constituents of the tangles.

Download Full-text

Toward a neuroscope: An application of high-performance computing for real-time evaluation of brain function using MRI

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100172346 ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 52 ◽

pp. 922-923

Author(s):

C. S. Potter ◽

C. D. Gregory ◽

H. D. Morris ◽

Z.-P. Liang ◽

P. C. Lauterbur

Keyword(s):

Human Brain ◽

Brain Function ◽

High Performance ◽

Complex Signal ◽

Time Step ◽

Brain Organization ◽

Cognitive Studies ◽

Positron Emission ◽

Imaging And Spectroscopy ◽

3D Anatomy

Over the past few years, several laboratories have demonstrated that changes in local neuronal activity associated with human brain function can be detected by magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy. Using these methods, the effects of sensory and motor stimulation have been observed and cognitive studies have begun. These new methods promise to make possible even more rapid and extensive studies of brain organization and responses than those now in use, such as positron emission tomography.Human brain studies are enormously complex. Signal changes on the order of a few percent must be detected against the background of the complex 3D anatomy of the human brain. Today, most functional MR experiments are performed using several 2D slice images acquired at each time step or stimulation condition of the experimental protocol. It is generally believed that true 3D experiments must be performed for many cognitive experiments. To provide adequate resolution, this requires that data must be acquired faster and/or more efficiently to support 3D functional analysis.

Download Full-text