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Updated: Jan 25, 2026

Translational Brain Mapping at the University of Rochester Medical Center: Preserving the Mind Through Personalized Brain Mapping
Published on: August 12, 2019
Language, mind and brain
Angela D Friederici1, Noam Chomsky2, Robert C Berwick3
1Department of Neuropsychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, 04103, Leipzig, Germany. friederici@cbs.mpg.de.
Abstract:
Language serves as a cornerstone of human cognition. However, our knowledge about its neural basis is still a matter of debate, partly because 'language' is often ill-defined. Rather than equating language with 'speech' or 'communication', we propose that language is best described as a biologically determined computational cognitive mechanism that yields an unbounded array of hierarchically structured expressions. The results of recent brain imaging studies are consistent with this view of language as an autonomous cognitive mechanism, leading to a view of its neural organization, whereby language involves dynamic interactions of syntactic and semantic aspects represented in neural networks that connect the inferior frontal and superior temporal cortices functionally and structurally.
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