Broca’s Area Is Not a Natural Kind
Name
nihms-1568775.pdf
Description
Accepted version
Size
1.02 MB
Format
Unknown
Checksum (MD5)
30d9ab4bb54ac620857bd95db347a3e7
Author(s)
Fedorenko, Evelina G
Blank, Idan A
Date Issued
2020
Journal
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Citation
Fedorenko, Evelina and Blank, Idan A. 2020. "Broca’s Area Is Not a Natural Kind." Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 24 (4).
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd Theories of human cognition prominently feature 'Broca's area', which causally contributes to a myriad of mental functions. However, Broca's area is not a monolithic, multipurpose unit – it is structurally and functionally heterogeneous. Some functions engaging (subsets of) this area share neurocognitive resources, whereas others rely on separable circuits. A decade of converging evidence has now illuminated a fundamental distinction between two subregions of Broca's area that likely play computationally distinct roles in cognition: one belongs to the domain-specific 'language network', the other to the domain-general 'multiple-demand (MD) network'. Claims about Broca's area should be (re)cast in terms of these (and other, as yet undetermined) functional components, to establish a cumulative research enterprise where empirical findings can be replicated and theoretical proposals can be meaningfully compared and falsified.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1016/J.TICS.2020.01.001
