Clinical trial NCT05222594: Computational Neuroscience of Language Processing in the Human Brain
Official title: Computational Neuroscience of Language Processing in the Human Brain
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: RECRUITING
Phase: NA
Conditions: Language
Epilepsy
Keywords: language
computational neuroscience
epilepsy
Lead sponsor: Massachusetts General Hospital
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
First posted: 2022-02-03
Enrollment: 40
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 85
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: NA
Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE

Brief summary: 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: 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.

Eligibility criteria: 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

Primary outcomes:
measure: Cortical maps of linguistic responses
timeFrame: Throughout intracranial monitoring period, up to approximately 10 days
measure: Neural time-courses during naturalistic language comprehension
timeFrame: Throughout intracranial monitoring period, up to approximately 10 days
measure: Brain scores for diverse artificial neural network (ANN) language models
timeFrame: Throughout intracranial monitoring period, up to approximately 10 days
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Boston
country: United States
facility: Massachusetts General Hospital
state: Massachusetts
Study officials:
References:
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