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Frontal language areas do not emerge in the absence of temporal language areas: A case study of an individual born without a left temporal lobe

View ORCID ProfileGreta Tuckute, Alexander Paunov, Hope Kean, Hannah Small, Zachary Mineroff, Idan Blank, Evelina Fedorenko
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.05.28.446230
Greta Tuckute
1Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
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  • ORCID record for Greta Tuckute
  • For correspondence: gretatu@mit.edu evelina9@mit.edu
Alexander Paunov
1Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
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Hope Kean
1Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
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Hannah Small
1Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
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Zachary Mineroff
1Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
2Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation, CMU, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
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Idan Blank
1Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
3Department of Psychology, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
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Evelina Fedorenko
1Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
4The Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology, Harvard University, Boston, MA 02114, USA
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  • For correspondence: gretatu@mit.edu evelina9@mit.edu
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Abstract

High-level language processing is supported by a left-lateralized fronto-temporal brain network. How this network emerges ontogenetically remains debated. Given that frontal cortex in general exhibits protracted development, frontal language areas presumably emerge later and/or mature more slowly than temporal language areas. But are temporal areas necessary for the development of the language areas in the frontal lobe, or do frontal language areas instead emerge independently? We shed light on this question through a case study of an individual (EG) born without a left temporal lobe. We use fMRI methods that have been previously extensively validated for their ability to elicit robust language responses at the individual-subject level. As expected in cases of early left hemisphere (LH) damage, we find that EG has a fully functional language network in her right hemisphere (RH) and performs within the normal range on standardized language assessments. However, her RH frontal language areas have no corresponding LH homotopic areas: no reliable response to language is detected on the lateral surface of EG’s left frontal lobe. However, another network implicated in high-level cognition— the domain-general multiple demand, MD, network—is robustly present in both right and left frontal lobes, suggesting that EG’s left frontal cortex is capable of supporting non-linguistic cognitive functions. The existence of temporal language areas therefore appears to be a prerequisite for the emergence of the language areas in the frontal lobe.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Footnotes

  • Conflict of interest The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted May 28, 2021.
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Frontal language areas do not emerge in the absence of temporal language areas: A case study of an individual born without a left temporal lobe
Greta Tuckute, Alexander Paunov, Hope Kean, Hannah Small, Zachary Mineroff, Idan Blank, Evelina Fedorenko
bioRxiv 2021.05.28.446230; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.05.28.446230
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Frontal language areas do not emerge in the absence of temporal language areas: A case study of an individual born without a left temporal lobe
Greta Tuckute, Alexander Paunov, Hope Kean, Hannah Small, Zachary Mineroff, Idan Blank, Evelina Fedorenko
bioRxiv 2021.05.28.446230; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.05.28.446230

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