Understanding Language Processing in the Human Brain

This study is looking for people aged 18 to 85 who have epilepsy and are already scheduled for brain monitoring in their left brain hemisphere. The goal is to understand how the human brain processes language. Participants will listen to sentences and stories while their brain activity is recorded through electrodes that are already in place for their medical care. Researchers will then look at brain maps of language responses, how brain activity changes over time during language understanding, and compare this to computer models of language. The study aims to map out how the brain understands speech. Currently, the study status is unclear, and it plans to enroll 40 participants.

Study design
This is an interventional study planning to enroll 40 participants. It involves specific tasks during intracranial monitoring.
What's involved
You would listen to sentences and stories while your brain activity is recorded through electrodes already placed for clinical purposes. This monitoring period could last up to approximately 10 days.
Compensation
Not stated in the trial record.
Follow-up
The primary endpoints are measured throughout the intracranial monitoring period, up to approximately 10 days.

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NCT05222594

Computational Neuroscience of Language Processing in the Human Brain

Recruiting
NAAges 18–85InterventionalBasic science
Massachusetts General Hospital
~40 participants
Updated 2026-05-07 on ClinicalTrials.gov
What's tested:Behavioral tasks during intracranial monitoring

At a glance

Recruiting sites
1 of 1 listed site is recruiting right now
RecruitingSuspended, closed, or not yet open
What they're measuring
Cortical maps of linguistic responses
Measured over Throughout intracranial monitoring period, up to approximately 10 days
+2 more outcomes measured
Language
Epilepsy
1 sites across 1 states
Massachusetts1

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Eligibility criteria

Inclusion

clinical indications to proceed with intracranial monitoring involving the left cerebral hemisphere, as determined by a multidisciplinary epilepsy surgery team
the ability to comply with test directions and provide informed consent
between ages 18 - 85

Exclusion

inability to understand or perform the task outlined in the protocol, or who are unwilling or unable to participate
  • Cortical maps of linguistic responsesThroughout intracranial monitoring period, up to approximately 10 days

    By using sEEG intracranial recordings of the brain, EEG power in frequency bands will reflect cortical maps of responses to different linguistic manipulations, informing the functional organization of the human language system. Power is measured in arbitrary units; higher power reflects greater activity at the investigated frequency.

  • Neural time-courses during naturalistic language comprehensionThroughout intracranial monitoring period, up to approximately 10 days

    Time-courses of neural response to language across diverse parts of the language network. These data will be used to predict across-time variation in response strength from the properties of linguistic input.

  • Brain scores for diverse artificial neural network (ANN) language modelsThroughout intracranial monitoring period, up to approximately 10 days

    Human neural data will be compared to ANN language models to test how well these models predict human responses to language and why. There are no minimum or maximum scores. Higher values mean better model predictivity (i.e., a better match between model representations and neural responses).