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Computational Neuroscience of Language Processing in the Human Brain

Sponsor
Massachusetts General Hospital (Other)
Overall Status
Recruiting
CT.gov ID
NCT05222594
Collaborator
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Other)
40
Enrollment
1
Location
1
Arm
59.9
Anticipated Duration (Months)
0.7
Patients Per Site Per Month

Study Details

Study Description

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.

Condition or Disease Intervention/Treatment Phase
  • Other: Behavioral tasks during intracranial monitoring
 N/A

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.

Study Design

Study Type:
Interventional
Anticipated Enrollment :
40 participants
Allocation:
N/A
Intervention Model:
Single Group Assignment
Masking:
None (Open Label)
Primary Purpose:
Basic Science
Official Title:
Computational Neuroscience of Language Processing in the Human Brain
Actual Study Start Date :
Apr 2, 2021
Anticipated Primary Completion Date :
Mar 31, 2026
Anticipated Study Completion Date :
Mar 31, 2026

Arms and Interventions

Arm Intervention/Treatment
Other: Epileptic participants undergoing intracranial monitoring

Patients with pharmaco-resistant epilepsy undergoing intracranial monitoring involving the left cerebral hemisphere.

Other: Behavioral tasks during intracranial monitoring
Participants will listen to sentences and stories while neural data are recorded through electrodes placed for clinical purposes.

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcome Measures

  1. Cortical maps of linguistic responses [Throughout intracranial monitoring period, up to approximately 10 days]

    Using sEEG intracranial recordings of the brain, collected data will reflect cortical maps of responses to different linguistic manipulations, informing the functional organization of the human language system.

  2. Neural time-courses during naturalistic language comprehension [Throughout intracranial monitoring period, up to approximately 10 days]

    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.

  3. Brain scores for diverse artificial neural network (ANN) language models [Throughout intracranial monitoring period, up to approximately 10 days]

    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).

Eligibility Criteria

Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study:
18 Years to 85 Years
Sexes Eligible for Study:
All
Accepts Healthy Volunteers:
No
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

Contacts and Locations

Locations

Site City State Country Postal Code
1 Massachusetts General Hospital Boston Massachusetts United States 02114

Sponsors and Collaborators

  • Massachusetts General Hospital
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Investigators

None specified.

Study Documents (Full-Text)

None provided.

More Information

Publications

Responsible Party:
Robert Mark Richardson, Director, Functional Neurosurgery, Massachusetts General Hospital
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
NCT05222594
Other Study ID Numbers:
  • 2020P001989
First Posted:
Feb 3, 2022
Last Update Posted:
Feb 24, 2022
Last Verified:
Feb 1, 2022
Individual Participant Data (IPD) Sharing Statement:
No
Plan to Share IPD:
No
Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated Drug Product:
No
Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated Device Product:
No
Keywords provided by Robert Mark Richardson, Director, Functional Neurosurgery, Massachusetts General Hospital
language
computational neuroscience
epilepsy
Additional relevant MeSH terms:
Epilepsy

Study Results

No Results Posted as of Feb 24, 2022