A new precision neuroscience of language

Despite centuries of research and an urgent clinical need, language remains far less understood than motor and sensory systems in the brain. This gap stems from two key challenges: (1) a lack of recording techniques that can capture all relevant spatial and temporal scales at once, resulting in independent silos of scientific inquiry constructed around particular techniques, and (2) substantial individual variation in the functional brain anatomy underlying language and other higher-order cognitive abilities. To address these challenges, we propose a new precision neuroscience approach to language that aims to build individual profiles of each person’s unique cortical representation of language, using multiple recording methods (from whole-brain imaging to single neuron recordings). For the first time, this will enable critical tests of theories formed at one scale with data from another. Specifically, we will investigate how macroscale networks identified by fMRI (e.g., the "language network") relate to microscale neural tuning properties, and how the neural representations of language evolve over time at different scales. Finally, we will leverage this precision neuroscience approach to help build neuroprostheses that seek to restore language. We will create personalized implant targeting methods to identify regions containing neural representations most useful for decoding, removing a key outstanding barrier to clinical translation. A precision neuroscience of language will center the individual over group-averaged models, offering the potential for transformative insights into language representation and a paradigm shift in how we study the neural basis of human cognitive functions.