OSCR

Preserved topography, lateralization, selectivity, and functional connectivity of the language network in older brains.

Overview

Authors: Anne Billot1,2, Niharika Jhingan3, Maria Varkanitsa4, Agata Wolna3,5, Cory Shain6, Idan Blank7,8, Rachel Ryskin9, Swathi Kiran4, Evelina Fedorenko3,5,10
ORCID iDs: Anne Billot, Idan Blank, Swathi Kiran, Evelina Fedorenko
  1. Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA USA
  2. Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA USA
  3. McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA USA
  4. Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA USA
  5. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA USA
  6. Department of Linguistics, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA USA
  7. Department of Psychology, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA USA
  8. Department of Linguistics, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA USA
  9. Department of Cognitive & Information Sciences, University of California Merced, Merced, CA USA
  10. Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology, Harvard University, Boston, MA USA
Institutions: Harvard University (United States); Massachusetts General Hospital (United States); McGovern Institute for Brain Research (United States); Massachusetts Institute of Technology (United States); Boston University (United States); Stanford University (United States); University of California, Los Angeles (United States); University of California, Merced (United States)
Journal: Nature communications, volume 17, issue 1, article 8573
Dates: received 9 January 2025; accepted 29 July 2026; published online 24 August 2026
Type: Research article · Language: English
License: CC BY-NC-ND
Identifiers: DOI 10.1038/s41467-026-76598-x · PMID 42637780 · PMCID PMC13503826 · OpenAlex W7204138779
Open access: gold, a free copy (OpenAlex)
Status: data only
Categories: fMRI (modality), human (organism), cognitive (subfield)
Methods: Spectral & time-frequency, Connectivity, Statistics, Smoothing, state filtering, decompositions, Machine learning, Preprocessing, fMRI & imaging
Keywords: Language, Neural ageing, Cognitive ageing
MeSH: Aging*, Brain*, Functional Laterality*, Language*, Nerve Net*, Adult, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Brain Mapping, Comprehension, Executive Function, Female, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Young Adult (* major topic)
Topic: Functional Brain Connectivity Studies (Cognitive Neuroscience, Neuroscience), according to OpenAlex
Funding: NIDCD NIH HHS (R01 DC016950); U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) (R01DC016950)
Citations: not cited yet (Europe PMC); 206 references in the paper

Abstract

The abstract is not reproduced here: the paper's license (CC BY-NC-ND) does not allow it. Read it in the paper, at the publisher or on Europe PMC.

Code

The paper links to its data, not to its authors' code: see the Data section.

Tracing map

A tracing map links a paper to the code its authors published: this paper has none, so it has no map.

Data

Datasets cited

Data availability statement

The paper has a data availability statement. Its license (CC BY-NC-ND) does not allow reproducing it here; in short, from what the harvester recognized in it:

Read it in the paper: doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-76598-x.

Versions

The history of this record: each version stored by the harvester or made by a correction of its authors or of the maintainers of its code, and what changed in its facts. The texts of the paper (its abstract, its availability statements) are not part of it; versions that changed only those are not listed.

Version 1, 27 September 2026: the first record

Recorded: type, language, journal, volume, issue, pages, dates, 9 authors, 3 keywords, 16 MeSH terms, 2 funders, 187 references.

Cite

This paper

Billot, A., Jhingan, N., Varkanitsa, M., Wolna, A., Shain, C., Blank, I., Ryskin, R., Kiran, S., & Fedorenko, E. (2026). Preserved topography, lateralization, selectivity, and functional connectivity of the language network in older brains. Nature communications, 17(1), 8573. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-76598-x

BibTeX

@article{billot2026preserved,
author = {Billot, Anne and Jhingan, Niharika and Varkanitsa, Maria and Wolna, Agata and Shain, Cory and Blank, Idan and Ryskin, Rachel and Kiran, Swathi and Fedorenko, Evelina},
title = {{Preserved topography, lateralization, selectivity, and functional connectivity of the language network in older brains}},
journal = {Nature communications},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
volume = {17},
number = {1},
pages = {8573},
publisher = {Nature Publishing Group},
issn = {2041-1723},
doi = {10.1038/s41467-026-76598-x},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-76598-x},
pmid = {42637780},
pmcid = {PMC13503826}
}

RIS

TY - JOUR
AU - Billot, Anne
AU - Jhingan, Niharika
AU - Varkanitsa, Maria
AU - Wolna, Agata
AU - Shain, Cory
AU - Blank, Idan
AU - Ryskin, Rachel
AU - Kiran, Swathi
AU - Fedorenko, Evelina
TI - Preserved topography, lateralization, selectivity, and functional connectivity of the language network in older brains
T2 - Nature communications
J2 - Nat Commun
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/24
VL - 17
IS - 1
SP - 8573
SN - 2041-1723
PB - Nature Publishing Group
DO - 10.1038/s41467-026-76598-x
UR - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-76598-x
LA - en
ER -

CSL-JSON

{
"id": "10.1038/s41467-026-76598-x",
"type": "article-journal",
"title": "Preserved topography, lateralization, selectivity, and functional connectivity of the language network in older brains",
"container-title": "Nature communications",
"author": [
{
"family": "Billot",
"given": "Anne"
},
{
"family": "Jhingan",
"given": "Niharika"
},
{
"family": "Varkanitsa",
"given": "Maria"
},
{
"family": "Wolna",
"given": "Agata"
},
{
"family": "Shain",
"given": "Cory"
},
{
"family": "Blank",
"given": "Idan"
},
{
"family": "Ryskin",
"given": "Rachel"
},
{
"family": "Kiran",
"given": "Swathi"
},
{
"family": "Fedorenko",
"given": "Evelina"
}
],
"container-title-short": "Nat Commun",
"volume": "17",
"issue": "1",
"page": "8573",
"DOI": "10.1038/s41467-026-76598-x",
"PMID": "42637780",
"PMCID": "PMC13503826",
"ISSN": "2041-1723",
"publisher": "Nature Publishing Group",
"URL": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-76598-x",
"language": "en",
"issued": {
"date-parts": [
[
2026,
8,
24
]
]
}
}

Similar papers

The papers with a page that share the most with this one: the tools found in their code, their categories, datasets, cited references and authors, the rarest counting most.

[1] doi:10.1162/imag.a.1246 [code]
A 3.5-minute-long reading-based fMRI localizer for the language network.
Journal: Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)
In common: fMRI, 43 references, author Evelina Fedorenko
[2] doi:10.1038/s41467-026-75745-8 [code]
A language network in the individualized functional connectomes of 1199 human brains doing arbitrary tasks.
Journal: Nature communications
In common: cognitive, 37 references, author Evelina Fedorenko
[3] doi:10.1162/imag.a.1283 [code]
The language network responds robustly to sentences across tasks.
Journal: Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)
In common: fMRI, 30 references
[4] doi:10.1038/s41467-026-72916-5 [code]
Precision fMRI reveals that the language network exhibits adult-like left-hemispheric lateralization by 4 years of age.
Journal: Nature communications
In common: fMRI, 26 references, author Evelina Fedorenko
[5] doi:10.1523/jneurosci.0638-25.2026 [code]
The Extended Language Network: Language-Responsive Brain Areas Whose Contributions to Language Remain To Be Discovered.
Journal: The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience
In common: fMRI, cognitive, 22 references
[6] doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2026.04.011 [code]
Precision fMRI reveals densely interdigitated network patches with conserved motifs in the lateral prefrontal cortex.
Journal: Neuron
In common: fMRI, 15 references
[7] doi:10.1016/j.isci.2026.116704
Domain-general and language-specific brain networks are differentially associated with verbal intelligence during development.
Journal: iScience
In common: 11 references
[8] doi:10.1162/imag.a.1281
Syntactic processing engages the semantic control network.
Journal: Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)
In common: 10 references
[9] doi:10.1093/brain/awaf443 [code]
Cellular signatures underlying functional resilience in presymptomatic frontotemporal dementia.
Journal: Brain : a journal of neurology
In common: fMRI, 9 references
[10] doi:10.1093/cercor/bhag120
Cognition disconnected: the influence of domain-general cognition (g) in lesion-deficit mapping.
Journal: Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
In common: cognitive, 8 references

Contribute

The authors of this paper can claim it, correct its record and validate its tracing map, and the maintainers of its code (its owner, or a public member of its organization) correct what it says of their repository; anyone signed in can ask for its removal. Every request goes to OSCR's own machine, which answers it; your account page follows them.

Sign in with ORCID to claim this paper as one of its authors, correct its record or validate its tracing map: when the paper's metadata lists your ORCID iD, you are recognized at once. Maintainers of its code: sign in with GitHub, then claim the repository on your account page.

Request its removal

To ask OSCR to remove this record, the copies of its authors' scripts or its tracing map, use the removal request page: signed in, you say who you are, what to remove and why, then review and confirm the request. Published rules decide every request (how).

Discussion, reproductions, activity

Discussion: questions and error reports about this paper and its code, from signed-in readers and its authors. It opens with sign-in.

Reproductions: reports from readers who ran the authors' code: what they reproduced, with which environment, commit and data. It opens with sign-in.

Activity: what happens around this paper: new versions of its record, its map's validation, discussions and reproductions. It opens with sign-in.