Neural populations in the language network differ in the size of their temporal receptive windows

Tamar I. Regev (), Colton Casto (), Eghbal A. Hosseini, Markus Adamek, Anthony L. Ritaccio, Jon T. Willie, Peter Brunner and Evelina Fedorenko ()
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Tamar I. Regev: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Colton Casto: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Eghbal A. Hosseini: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Markus Adamek: National Center for Adaptive Neurotechnologies
Anthony L. Ritaccio: Mayo Clinic
Jon T. Willie: National Center for Adaptive Neurotechnologies
Peter Brunner: National Center for Adaptive Neurotechnologies
Evelina Fedorenko: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Nature Human Behaviour, 2024, vol. 8, issue 10, 1924-1942

Abstract: Abstract Despite long knowing what brain areas support language comprehension, our knowledge of the neural computations that these frontal and temporal regions implement remains limited. One important unresolved question concerns functional differences among the neural populations that comprise the language network. Here we leveraged the high spatiotemporal resolution of human intracranial recordings (n = 22) to examine responses to sentences and linguistically degraded conditions. We discovered three response profiles that differ in their temporal dynamics. These profiles appear to reflect different temporal receptive windows, with average windows of about 1, 4 and 6 words, respectively. Neural populations exhibiting these profiles are interleaved across the language network, which suggests that all language regions have direct access to distinct, multiscale representations of linguistic input—a property that may be critical for the efficiency and robustness of language processing.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1038/s41562-024-01944-2

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