Biology subjects

Berthele, R.

Publications and source records attributed to Berthele, R..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Brain activation for language and its relationship to cognitive and linguistic measures

Language learning and use relies on both domain-specific and domain-general cognitive and sensory-motor functions. Evolutionary and developmental perspectives, as well as the use of language in interaction, suggest an overlap between language and other skills. Building on our previous behavioural findings, which outlined a consistent behavioural association between language and domain-general skills, we investigated brain-behavioural associations using story listening during fMRI and behavioural measures of language, reading, multilingual experience, cognition, musicality, arithmetic, and motor skills. Participants varied in multilingual language experience and reading aptitudes, including both typical (TRs) and dyslexic readers (DRs). Using multivariate Partial Least Squares correlation, we identified a main component linking cognitive, linguistic, and phonological measures to brain areas underlying lexico/semantics, combinatorial processing, and amodal semantic processing. A second analysis excluding DRs showed closer associations between cognitive/linguistic, literacy, phonological and memory processes within the same brain network as in the full sample. Here, we also isolated additional, complementary components, including one involving speed, automatization and lexical access, linked to auditory and motor brain areas. This suggests greater coherence and more integrated, expert processing in TRs. This work is a first step in exploring complex relationships between language and non-linguistic functions that are important to it.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2024

Intergenerational transmission of the structure of the auditory cortex and reading skills

High-level cognitive skill development relies on genetic and environmental factors, tied to brain structure and function. Inter-individual variability in language and music skills has been repeatedly associated with the structure of the auditory cortex: the shape, size and asymmetry of the transverse temporal gyrus (TTG) or gyri (TTGs). TTG is highly variable in shape and size, some individuals having one single gyrus (also referred to as Heschls gyrus, HG) while others presenting duplications (with a common stem or fully separated) or higher-order multiplications of TTG. Both genetic and environmental influences on childrens cognition, behavior, and brain can to some to degree be traced back to familial and parental factors. In the current study, using a unique MRI dataset of parents and children (135 individuals from 37 families), we ask whether the anatomy of the auditory cortex is related to reading skills, and whether there are intergenerational effects on TTG(s) anatomy. For this, we performed detailed, automatic segmentations of HG and of additional TTG(s), when present, extracting volume, surface area, thickness and shape of the gyri. We tested for relationships between these and reading skill, and assessed their degree of familial similarity and intergenerational transmission effects. We found that volume and area of all identified left TTG(s) combined was positively related to reading scores, both in children and adults. With respect to intergenerational similarities in the structure of the auditory cortex, we identified structural brain similarities for mother-child pairs of the 1st TTG (HG) (in terms of volume, area and thickness for the right HG, and shape for the left HG) and of the lateralization of all TTG(s) surface area for father-child pairs. Both the HG and TTG-lateralization findings were significantly more likely for parent-child dyads than for unrelated adult-child pairs. Furthermore, we established characteristics of parents TTG that are related to better reading abilities in children: fathers small left HG, and a small ratio of HG to planum temporale. Our results suggest intergenerational transmission of specific structural features of the auditory cortex (not directly linked to childrens reading outcomes); these may arise from genetics and/or from shared environment.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2024

NEBULA101: an open dataset for the study of language aptitude in behaviour, brain structure and function

This paper introduces the "NEBULA101 - Neuro-behavioural Understanding of Language Aptitude" dataset, which comprises behavioural and brain imaging data from 101 healthy adults to examine individual differences in language and cognition. Human language, a multifaceted behaviour, varies significantly among individuals, at different processing levels. Recent advances in cognitive science have embraced an integrated approach, combining behavioural and brain studies to explore these differences comprehensively. The NEBULA101 dataset offers brain structural, diffusion-weighted, task-based and resting-state MRI data, alongside extensive linguistic and non-linguistic behavioural measures to explore the complex interaction of language and cognition in a highly multilingual sample. By sharing this multimodal dataset, we hope to promote research on the neuroscience of language, cognition and multilingualism, enabling the field to deepen its understanding of the multivariate panorama of individual differences and ultimately contributing to open science.

neuroscience↗