Language-Selective and Domain-General Regions Lie Side by Side within Broca’s Area
In 1861, Paul Broca stood up before the Anthropological Society of Paris and announced that the left frontal lobe was the seat of speech. Ever since, Broca’s eponymous brain region has served as a primary battleground for one of the central debates in the science of the mind and brain: Is human cogn...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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Elsevier
2013
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/82157 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3823-514X https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3853-7885 |
| _version_ | 1811068876143722496 |
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| author | Duncan, John Kanwisher, Nancy Fedorenko, Evelina G. |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences Duncan, John Kanwisher, Nancy Fedorenko, Evelina G. |
| author_sort | Duncan, John |
| collection | MIT |
| description | In 1861, Paul Broca stood up before the Anthropological Society of Paris and announced that the left frontal lobe was the seat of speech. Ever since, Broca’s eponymous brain region has served as a primary battleground for one of the central debates in the science of the mind and brain: Is human cognition produced by highly specialized brain regions, each conducting a specific mental process, or instead by more general-purpose brain mechanisms, each broadly engaged in a wide range of cognitive tasks? For Broca’s area, the debate focuses on specialization for language versus domain-general functions such as hierarchical structure building (e.g., [1 and 2]), aspects of action processing (e.g., [3]), working memory (e.g., [4]), or cognitive control (e.g., [5, 6 and 7]). Here, using single-subject fMRI, we find that both ideas are right: Broca’s area contains two sets of subregions lying side by side, one quite specifically engaged in language processing, surrounded by another that is broadly engaged across a wide variety of tasks and content domains. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:02:20Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/82157 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:02:20Z |
| publishDate | 2013 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/821572022-09-23T10:28:26Z Language-Selective and Domain-General Regions Lie Side by Side within Broca’s Area Duncan, John Kanwisher, Nancy Fedorenko, Evelina G. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT Fedorenko, Evelina G. Kanwisher, Nancy In 1861, Paul Broca stood up before the Anthropological Society of Paris and announced that the left frontal lobe was the seat of speech. Ever since, Broca’s eponymous brain region has served as a primary battleground for one of the central debates in the science of the mind and brain: Is human cognition produced by highly specialized brain regions, each conducting a specific mental process, or instead by more general-purpose brain mechanisms, each broadly engaged in a wide range of cognitive tasks? For Broca’s area, the debate focuses on specialization for language versus domain-general functions such as hierarchical structure building (e.g., [1 and 2]), aspects of action processing (e.g., [3]), working memory (e.g., [4]), or cognitive control (e.g., [5, 6 and 7]). Here, using single-subject fMRI, we find that both ideas are right: Broca’s area contains two sets of subregions lying side by side, one quite specifically engaged in language processing, surrounded by another that is broadly engaged across a wide variety of tasks and content domains. Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (U.S.) (Award K99HD-057522) Ellison Medical Foundation 2013-11-18T15:34:51Z 2013-11-18T15:34:51Z 2012-11 2012-08 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 09609822 1879-0445 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/82157 Fedorenko, Evelina, John Duncan, and Nancy Kanwisher. “Language-Selective and Domain-General Regions Lie Side by Side within Broca’s Area.” Current Biology 22, no. 21 (November 2012): 2059-2062. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3823-514X https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3853-7885 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2012.09.011 Current Biology Article is available under a Creative Commons license. http://creativecommons.org/ application/pdf Elsevier PMC |
| spellingShingle | Duncan, John Kanwisher, Nancy Fedorenko, Evelina G. Language-Selective and Domain-General Regions Lie Side by Side within Broca’s Area |
| title | Language-Selective and Domain-General Regions Lie Side by Side within Broca’s Area |
| title_full | Language-Selective and Domain-General Regions Lie Side by Side within Broca’s Area |
| title_fullStr | Language-Selective and Domain-General Regions Lie Side by Side within Broca’s Area |
| title_full_unstemmed | Language-Selective and Domain-General Regions Lie Side by Side within Broca’s Area |
| title_short | Language-Selective and Domain-General Regions Lie Side by Side within Broca’s Area |
| title_sort | language selective and domain general regions lie side by side within broca s area |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/82157 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3823-514X https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3853-7885 |
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