Identifying a supramodal language network in human brain with individual fingerprint

Abstract

Where is human language processed in the brain independent of its form? We addressed this issue by analyzing the cortical responses to spoken, written and signed sentences at the level of individual subjects. By applying a novel fingerprinting method based on the distributed pattern of brain activity, we identified a left-lateralized network composed by the superior temporal gyrus/sulcus (STG/STS), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), precentral gyrus/sulcus (PCG/PCS), and supplementary motor area (SMA). In these regions, the local distributed activity pattern induced by any of the three language modalities can predict the activity pattern induced by the other two modalities, and such cross-modal prediction is individual-specific. The prediction is successful for speech-sign bilinguals across all possible modality pairs, but fails for monolinguals across sign-involved pairs. In comparison, conventional group-mean focused analysis detects shared cortical activations across modalities only in the STG, PCG/PCS and SMA, and the shared activations were found in both groups. This study reveals the core language system in the brain that is shared by spoken, written and signed language, and demonstrates that it is possible and desirable to utilize the information of individual differences for functional brain mapping.