The unique human ability to process complex language requires the interaction of multiple brain areas located in the inferior frontal and posterior temporal cortex connected by white matter fiber tracts. These fiber tracts underlie the transfer of information between brain regions. In recent years, MRI of white matter brain networks has provided important insights into the plasticity of the structural brain basis underlying language. This structural network is shaped during childhood as a function of language learning by strengthening the connectivity between language-relevant regions mainly in the left hemisphere. In this way, the specific linguistic properties of the native language tongue lead to a modulation of the core language network observable in the adult brain. The brain basis underlying language processing also changes when a second language is learned, as shown by differences in brain connectivity between bilingual and monolingual individuals and by dynamic adaptations during second language learning. Studies of people who use sign language as their native language have shown a domain specificity of the sensory and motor systems rather than the core language network. This separation of the core language system from the sensory-motor system is evolutionarily based. Although the basic auditory-motor interface system is also present in monkeys and apes, the core language system reveals key differences between humans and nonhuman primates. Understanding the function and plasticity of this network is of paramount importance for human cognitive processes, including development and developmental disorders.

We use language to communicate our thoughts. But is language merely the expression of thoughts, which are themselves produced by other, nonlinguistic parts of o...

Language is at the heart of learning and education, and children who enter school with language weaknesses are at high risk of educational failure. We review interventions for reading and language tha...

Researchers discovered five phases of brain rewiring across the lifespan. The eras of childhood, adolescence, adulthood, early aging, and late aging each have characteristic rewiring of structural con...

The advancement of large language models poses a severe, potentially existential threat to online survey research, a fundamental tool for data coll...

Explaining the origins of language is a key challenge in understanding ourselves as a species. We present an empirical framework that draws on synergies across fields to facilitate robust studies of l...

Purpose: Shared reading is one of the most language-enriched contexts in children's home environments. A salient, understudied characteristic of ...

Despite their great diversity, human languages are shaped by recurring grammatical universals. Verkerk et al. show that about one-third of the proposed universals hold cross-linguistically through ana...

Neonatal brain responses to a foreign language are modulated by brief prenatal linguistic exposure in utero.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...

A study of several longitudinal birth cohorts and cross-sectional cohorts finds only moderate overlap in genetic variants between autism that is diagnosed earlier and that diagnosed later, so they may represent aetiologically different conditions.

The International Brain Laboratory presents a brain-wide electrophysiological map obtained from pooling data from 12 laboratories that performed the same standardized perceptual decision-making task i...

Background Assessing children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD) requires a clear understanding of how these conditions impact their daily lives. How...

Reading is one of the most complex skills that we utilize daily, and it involves the early development and interaction of various lower-level subsk...

Abstract. Emerging evidence underscores the prenatal period's critical role in shaping later cognition and health, influenced by an intricate interplay of

Cross-sectional studies have already addressed the question of the syllable's role in the first steps of reading acquisition—though with mixed results. To determine whether and when (1) syllables bec...

Object–sound, speech–sound, and letter–sound audiovisual integration all recruited the left posterior superior temporal gyrus (assimilation). Speech–sound integration additionally activated the bilat....

Scientific Reports - Learning to read transforms phonological into phonographic representations

Typological research shows that across languages, trilled [r] sounds are more common in adjectives describing rough as opposed to smooth surfaces. In this study

Nature Reviews Neuroscience - Language is widely distributed throughout the brain

Human auditory cortex tracks specific acoustic features, providing a multiscale temporal template for subsequent speech parsing.

Bilingual children reach early language milestones at the same age as monolingual peers