The Extended Language Network: Language-Responsive Brain Areas Whose Contributions to Language Remain To Be Discovered.
Paper
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The authors' code
Shell · 31 lines · 1.1 KB · no license
- #!/usr/bin/env bash
- # setup-dev.sh — reproducible R environment setup using renv
- set -e
- echo "setting up R environment using renv..."
- # check that R is installed
- if ! command -v R &> /dev/null; then
- echo "error: R is not installed or not in PATH. please install R before proceeding."
- exit 1
- fi
- # check that renv.lock exists
- if [ ! -f "renv.lock" ]; then
- echo "warning: no renv.lock file found in the current directory."
- echo "skipping renv::restore()."
- exit 0
- fi
- # install renv if not already installed (non-interactive, specify CRAN mirror)
- Rscript --no-save --no-restore -e "if (!requireNamespace('renv', quietly = TRUE)) install.packages('renv', repos='https://cloud.r-project.org')"
- # restore renv environment (non-interactive)
- Rscript --no-save --no-restore -e "renv::restore(prompt = FALSE)"
- # print versions for debugging
- Rscript --no-save --no-restore -e "cat('R version:', getRversion(), '\n'); if (requireNamespace('renv', quietly = TRUE)) cat('renv version:', as.character(utils::packageVersion('renv')), '\n')"
- echo "environment setup complete."
setup-dev.sh, no license · at the source
Overview
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
- Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
- Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology (SHBT), Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
Abstract
Although language neuroscience has largely focused on “core” left frontal and temporal brain areas and their right-hemisphere homotopes, numerous other areas—cortical and subcortical—have been implicated in linguistic processing. However, these areas' contributions to language remain unclear given that the evidence for their recruitment comes from diverse paradigms, many of which conflate language processing with perceptual, motor, or task-related cognitive processes. Using fMRI data from 772 participants (438 females, 334 males) performing an extensively validated language “localizer” paradigm that isolates language processing from other processes, we (1) delineate a comprehensive set of areas that respond reliably to language across written and auditory modalities and (2) evaluate these areas' selectivity for language relative to a demanding nonlinguistic task. In line with prior claims, many areas outside the core fronto-temporal network respond during language processing, and most of them show selectivity for language relative to general task demands. These language-selective areas of the extended language network include areas around the temporal poles, in the medial frontal cortex, in the hippocampus, and in the cerebellum, among others. Although distributed across many parts of the brain, the extended language-selective network still only comprises a small fraction (<5%) of the gray matter volume, challenging the view that the entire brain processes language. These newly identified language-selective areas can now be systematically characterized to decipher their contributions to language processing, including testing whether these contributions differ from those of the core language areas.
Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.
Repository
Its files are read in the Code ↔ Paper reader above.
OSF 7594t
Availability: 1 check, the latest on 27 September 2026: the link answers (HTTP 200)
- 27 September 2026: the link answers (HTTP 200)
5 files
- dev/
setup-dev.sh , Shell, 31 lines - dev/
update-dev.sh , Shell, 51 lines - renv/
activate.R , R, 1,334 lines - LICENSE, License, 21 lines
- README.md, Text, 317 lines
Code accessibility
All data, including 3D brain contrast maps (both smoothed and unsmoothed), parcels, and data produced by the functional localization analysis toolbox (spm_ss), as well as the code necessary to reproduce all analyses and plots presented in this paper are available at https://
Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.
Tracing map
Proposed by the machine: these links were found in the paper and verified at the source, without human review. The map will receive a Zenodo DOI once one of the paper's authors has validated it with their ORCID.
What the map holds:
- 1 repository of the authors' code, each at its verified commit, with its license and how the link was found in the paper;
- 3 scripts, each with its path and the digest of its content;
- no match between paragraphs and code yet;
- neither the text of the paper nor the code itself.
Its JSON (tracing-map.json) is deposited on Zenodo with its DOI once the map is validated.
Data
Datasets cited
- figshare:3501911, at figshare; found in the text, “Comparison with standard cortical atlases”
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, 6 authors, 4 keywords, 10 MeSH terms, 4 funders, 98 references.
Cite
This paper
Wolna, A., Wright, A., Casto, C., Hutchinson, S., Lipkin, B., & Fedorenko, E. (2026). The Extended Language Network: Language-Responsive Brain Areas Whose Contributions to Language Remain To Be Discovered. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 46(29), e0638252026. https://
BibTeX
@article{wolna2026extend
author = {Wolna, Agata and Wright, Aaron and Casto, Colton and Hutchinson, Samuel and Lipkin, Benjamin and Fedorenko, Evelina},
title = {{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},
year = {2026},
month = jul,
volume = {46},
number = {29},
pages = {e0638252026},
publisher = {Society for Neuroscience},
issn = {0270-6474},
doi = {10.1523/
url = {https://
pmid = {42373548},
pmcid = {PMC13393535}
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
AU - Wolna, Agata
AU - Wright, Aaron
AU - Casto, Colton
AU - Hutchinson, Samuel
AU - Lipkin, Benjamin
AU - Fedorenko, Evelina
TI - The Extended Language Network: Language-Responsive Brain Areas Whose Contributions to Language Remain To Be Discovered
T2 - The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience
J2 - J Neurosci
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/
VL - 46
IS - 29
SP - e0638252026
SN - 0270-6474
PB - Society for Neuroscience
DO - 10.1523/
UR - https://
LA - en
ER -
CSL-JSON
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