Recent research from the McGovern Institute for Brain Research uncovers how individual interests influence language processing in children’s brains, setting a precedent for personalized neuroscience.
The study, published in Imaging Neuroscience, was led by Anila D’Mello, a former postdoctoral researcher at the McGovern Institute, now an assistant professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and the University of Texas at Dallas. The research was conducted in the lab of esteemed MIT professor and McGovern Institute investigator John Gabrieli.
“Standard studies typically present the same stimuli to all participants to avoid result confounding,” explains Gabrieli, the Grover Hermann Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT. “Our investigation, on the other hand, customized stimuli based on each child’s interests, resulting in stronger and more consistent activity in the brain’s language regions across different individuals.”
This groundbreaking approach introduces a new paradigm that challenges conventional methodologies, highlighting the potential of personalization in neuroscience. Co-first authors Halie Olson, a postdoc at the McGovern Institute, and Kristina Johnson, PhD ’21, now an assistant professor at Northeastern University and a former MIT Media Lab doctoral student, emphasize the significance of integrating participants’ personal experiences into research design. “This method not only enhances the validity of our results but also includes a broader spectrum of individual perspectives often missed in traditional studies,” Johnson notes.
The Role of Interests in Language Processing
Interests serve as powerful drivers in language engagement, influencing our conversations and interactions. Research has shown that children perform better on reading assessments when they engage with topics that captivate their attention.
However, the field of neuroscience has largely overlooked the role of personal interests in brain studies, primarily due to concerns that varying interests could compromise experimental control—a cornerstone of scientific research.
In response, Gabrieli, D’Mello, Olson, and Johnson explored this largely uncharted territory, questioning whether personalizing language stimuli might enhance brain responses. “Our study is distinctive because we focus on managing the resulting brain activity instead of merely controlling the stimuli,” D’Mello asserts, contrasting it with typical neuroimaging studies that control exposure but may vary individual interest levels.
For this study, the team enlisted 20 children to assess how their interests shaped language processing in the brain. Caregivers detailed their child’s specific interests, which included varied topics from baseball to trains, “Minecraft,” and musicals. During the experiment, the children listened to audio stories tailored to their preferences, while also hearing generic nature-themed stories for comparative analysis. The researchers employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to monitor variations in brain activity linked to the narratives.
Insights into Brain Function
“We discovered that children exhibited more robust neural responses in language areas when they listened to narratives aligned with their interests compared to generic stories that didn’t resonate with them,” Olson states. “This indicates that personal interests not only affect brain activity but also emphasize the impact of customized experimental stimuli on neuroimaging outcomes.”
Remarkably, the researchers observed that even though the children were engaged with diverse stories, their brain activation patterns became more aligned with each other when processing their unique stories rather than the standard nature tales. “This suggests that aligning content with personal interests enhances both the strength and consistency of neural signals in language regions without altering their communicative dynamics,” D’Mello explains.
Gabrieli highlighted another key finding: “In addition to heightened engagement in language regions associated with relevant content, we saw strengthened activation in areas linked to reward and self-reflection.” Interests resonate on a personal level, likely triggering heightened activation in these regions during story engagement.
These personalized research frameworks may prove particularly beneficial when studying neurodivergent populations. The team is already applying these innovative methods to examine language processing in autistic children.
This study is a significant advancement in neuroscience, offering a model for future research that embraces personalization to uncover the intricacies of brain functions. By doing so, scientists can build a more comprehensive understanding of how different types of information are processed in specific brain circuits, especially concerning complex functions like language.
Photo credit & article inspired by: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
