Computational Neuroscience of Language Processing in the Human Brain

Study Overview
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Brief Summary
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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
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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.

Official Title
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Computational Neuroscience of Language Processing in the Human Brain

Conditions
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Language, Epilepsy

Intervention / Treatment
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* Other: Behavioral tasks during intracranial monitoring


Participation Criteria
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Eligibility Criteria
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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

Ages Eligible for Study
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Minimum Age: 18 Years
Maximum Age: 85 Years

Sexes Eligible for Study
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All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
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No

Study Plan
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How is the study designed?
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Design Details

Primary Purpose: Basic Science
Intervention Model: Single Group Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)


Arms and Interventions

| Participant Group/Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
| --- | --- |
| Other: Epileptic participants undergoing intracranial monitoring<br>Patients with pharmaco-resistant epilepsy undergoing intracranial monitoring involving the left cerebral hemisphere. | Other: Behavioral tasks during intracranial monitoring<br>* Participants will listen to sentences and stories while neural data are recorded through electrodes placed for clinical purposes.<br>|

What is the study measuring?
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Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Cortical maps of linguistic responses | By using sEEG intracranial recordings of the brain, EEG power in frequency bands will reflect cortical maps of responses to different linguistic manipulations, informing the functional organization of the human language system. Power is measured in arbitrary units; higher power reflects greater activity at the investigated frequency. | Throughout intracranial monitoring period, up to approximately 10 days | 
| Neural time-courses during naturalistic language comprehension | Time-courses of neural response to language across diverse parts of the language network. These data will be used to predict across-time variation in response strength from the properties of linguistic input. | Throughout intracranial monitoring period, up to approximately 10 days | 
| Brain scores for diverse artificial neural network (ANN) language models | Human neural data will be compared to ANN language models to test how well these models predict human responses to language and why. There are no minimum or maximum scores. Higher values mean better model predictivity (i.e., a better match between model representations and neural responses). | Throughout intracranial monitoring period, up to approximately 10 days | 

 Terms related to the study
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Keywords Provided by Centre Hospitalier Valida
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language, computational neuroscience, epilepsy