Preserved topography, lateralization, selectivity, and functional connectivity of the language network in older brains
13 affiliations
- 1Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA. [email protected]
- 2Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. [email protected]
- 3McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
- 4Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
- 5Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
- 6Department of Linguistics, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, USA
- 7Department of Linguistics, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- 8Department of Psychology, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
- 9Department of Cognitive & Information Sciences, University of California Merced, Merced, CA, USA
- 10Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA. [email protected]
- 11Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA. [email protected]
- 12McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA. [email protected]
- 13Program in Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA. [email protected]
Abstract
Healthy aging is associated with structural and functional brain changes. However, cognitive abilities differ from one another in how they change with age: whereas executive functions, like working memory, show age-related decline, aspects of linguistic processing remain relatively preserved (Hartshorne et al., 2015). This heterogeneity of the cognitive-behavioral landscape in aging predicts differences among brain networks in whether and how they should change with age. To evaluate this prediction, we used individual-subject fMRI analyses ('precision fMRI') to examine the language-selective network (Fedorenko et al., 2024) and the Multiple Demand (MD) network, which supports executive functions (Duncan et al., 2020), in older adults (n=77) relative to young controls (n=470). In line with past claims, relative to young adults, the MD network of older adults shows weaker and less spatially extensive activations during an executive function task and reduced within-network functional synchronization. However, in stark contrast to the MD network, we find remarkable preservation of the language network in older adults. Their language network responds to language as strongly and selectively as in younger adults, and is similarly lateralized and internally synchronized. In other words, the language network of older adults looks indistinguishable from that of younger adults. Our findings align with behavioral preservation of language skills in aging and suggest that some networks remain young-like, at least on standard measures of function and connectivity.
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BibTeX
@article{billot2026preserved,
title = {{Preserved topography, lateralization, selectivity, and functional connectivity of the language network in older brains}},
author = {Anne Billot and Niharika Jhingan and Maria Varkanitsa and Agata Wolna and Cory Shain and Idan Blank and Rachel Anna Ryskin and Swathi Kiran and Evelina G. Fedorenko},
journal = {Nature Communications},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.1038/s41467-026-76598-x},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-76598-x},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Preserved topography, lateralization, selectivity, and functional connectivity of the language network in older brains
AU - Anne Billot
AU - Niharika Jhingan
AU - Maria Varkanitsa
AU - Agata Wolna
AU - Cory Shain
AU - Idan Blank
AU - Rachel Anna Ryskin
AU - Swathi Kiran
AU - Evelina G. Fedorenko
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/24
JO - Nature Communications
DO - 10.1038/s41467-026-76598-x
UR - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-76598-x
AB - Healthy aging is associated with structural and functional brain changes. However, cognitive abilities differ from one another in how they change with age: whereas executive functions, like working memory, show age-related decline, aspects of linguistic processing remain relatively preserved (Hartshorne et al., 2015). This heterogeneity of the cognitive-behavioral landscape in aging predicts differences among brain networks in whether and how they should change with age. To evaluate this prediction, we used individual-subject fMRI analyses ('precision fMRI') to examine the language-selective network (Fedorenko et al., 2024) and the Multiple Demand (MD) network, which supports executive functions (Duncan et al., 2020), in older adults (n=77) relative to young controls (n=470). In line with past claims, relative to young adults, the MD network of older adults shows weaker and less spatially extensive activations during an executive function task and reduced within-network functional synchronization. However, in stark contrast to the MD network, we find remarkable preservation of the language network in older adults. Their language network responds to language as strongly and selectively as in younger adults, and is similarly lateralized and internally synchronized. In other words, the language network of older adults looks indistinguishable from that of younger adults. Our findings align with behavioral preservation of language skills in aging and suggest that some networks remain young-like, at least on standard measures of function and connectivity.
SN - 2041-1723
ER -