Awarded in 2026
Home Department: Linguistics
Faculty Advisor: Cory Shain (Linguistics)

Title: Neural Representation and Computation of Language Processing Across Whole-Brain and Intracortical Multi-Neuron Analyses

Abstract:
There is a distributed network in the human brain that is necessary and selective for language (LN, (Fedorenko et al. 2024)). What we know about function in the LN comes primarily from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), because it is non-invasive and has the spatial resolution and whole-brain coverage needed to parcellate the LN from nearby functionally different regions and networks within each individual. However, the detailed internal organization and dynamics of the LN remain poorly understood, because fMRI is ill-suited to study them. I am leading an effort to close this gap through a collaboration between neuroimaging and neurosurgical labs in Bio-X. For the first time, we have intensively scanned a BCI patient preoperatively on a range of tasks, obtained a high-accuracy parcellation of their individual LN with fMRI, and then surgically implanted key nodes in the LN with high-density intracortical microelectrode arrays (two in inferior frontal language areas and two in middle frontal language areas) that enable us to directly record from small numbers of neurons. I am now using these arrays to study fine-grained similarities and differences in LN-internal tuning across scales: between electrodes within an array, between arrays within a larger brain area, and between distant brain areas.