The extended language network: Language selective brain areas whose contributions to language remain to be discovered
This repository contains code and data accompanying:
Wolna, A., Wright, A., Casto, C., Lipkin, B., & Fedorenko, E. (2025). The extended language network: Language selective brain areas whose contributions to language remain to be discovered. bioRxiv, 2025-04. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.02.646835v2
The environment is a R 4.4.1 environment that makes heavy use of Tidyverse packages, {ggseg}, {emmeans}, {lmerTest}, and {patchwork}. Packages and environment managed by {renv}; organization managed by {here}
To get started:
-
Clone the repository:
git clone https://github.com/aaronwriight/extended_language_network.git cd extended_language_network
To recreate the exact R environment used in the paper, run:
-
Run the setup script:
chmod +x setup-dev.sh ./setup-dev.sh
This script will install R dependencies based on dependencies listed in the renv.lock file and configure your environment accordingly.
- Open the
extended_language_network.Rprojfile in RStudio or Positron and begin exploring or running the code.
Below is a high-level overview of the directories and files imporant for reproducing analyses and visualizations included throughout the project. Outputs from scripts, renderings, etc. are not necessarily listed below, nor included in the default repo. Many are masked in the .gitignore by default to keep a clean repo space, and will only appear as scripts are run locally.
Bolded items have been manually-selected to appear on the associated OSF repository
Italicized items are noteworthy items omitted or hidden by the .gitignore
NB: some files necessary for processing/analysis have been purposefully excluded from the external repository for such reasons as file size issues, anonymity concerns, or otherwise.
extended_language_network/
├── data/ # raw data input to script
│ ├── Alice/ | MDloc/ | LanglocSN/
│ │ ├── *_subjects.csv # subject lists for functional data
│ │ └── Funcloc/ # functional data
│ ├── AtlasParcels.xlsx # atlas parcellations
│ ├── detail_all.txt # the primary statistical table, output by 01_get_data.qmd
│ ├── Subjects_table.xlsx # EvLab SUBJECTS data
│ └── TableResults.xlsx # functional data statistics
├── extented_language_network.Rproj # R project file
├── .gitignore
├── LICENSE
├── osf/ # hand-picked files to push to osf mirror repo
├── misc/ # miscellaneous resources
├── _quarto.yml # quarto rendering
├── README.md
├── renv/ # R environment directory
├── renv.lock # R package lockfile
├── results/
│ ├── stats/ # statistical outputs
│ └── tables/ # descriptive outputs
├── setup-dev.sh # Development setup script
├── scripts/ # .qmd, .R, and other scripts used in pipeline
├── viz/
│ ├── presentation/ # associated conference posters
│ ├── figures/ # publication-ready, composite figures manually produced for visualization
│ ├── illustrator/ # adobe illustrator files used in curating visualizations
... └── images/ # plots and images produced by scripts
data: Contains raw data files that are used for inferential and descriptive statistical analyses
Alice|MDloc|langlocSN: functional language dataAtlas_Parcels.xlsx,Subjects_table.xlsx,TableResults.xlsx: atlas parcels, EvLab subjects, and statistical datadetail_all.txt: a comprehensive table of statistical outputs for functional activation in atlas and GSS parcels
misc: Contains miscellanous files and resources consulted throughout the project
osf: hand-picked files for the OSF repository
-
OSF: symlinks to select files reflected in the extended_language_network-osf mirror repo on GitHub(NOTE: the OSF subdirectory is not populated directly by any scripts in this repository, rather it includes symlinks to manually selected outputs summarizing key findings that will appear on the associated OSF repository, including outputs that may otherwise be masked in the .gitignore)
results: Contains stats and tables produced during analyses.
stats: statistical outputs from the analyses, organized by atlas type (e.g., DKT, Glasser, etc.). Each subdirectory contains model summaries and test results specific to that atlastables: tables generated from the analyses, organized by atlas type (e.g., DKT, Glasser, etc.). Each subdirectory contains results specific to that atlas.
scripts: Contains scripts (mostly .qmd files) that perform specific analyses or modular steps within the project pipeline.
00_demographics: computes demographic values used in the paper01_get_data: takes in functional data and outputsdetail_all.txt, the main data table for subsequent analyses02_stats: produces the gss (n=772 and n=86) and atlas parcel models/statistics03_plots: produces a variety of labeled brain plots and the shell of the main cortical and subcortical figures04_summary_tables: produces a comprehensive list of the distribution of atlas parcels05_supplementals: supplemental analyses06_sanity_checks: a scratch notebook for miscellanous verifications
viz: Contains automatically and manually produced visualizations (images/plots, figures)
presentation: conference and symposium postersfigures: manually-curated, publication-ready, composite figures (usually illustrator exports)illustrator: adobe illustrator filesimages: plots generated from the scripts (e.g.,03_plots), organized by type
A public-access mirror of this repository containing a subset of files necessary for reproduction are available at extended_language_network-osf.
Data and scripts necessary to reproduce analyses and plots reported in the paper are also available on OSF.
Tags: functional localizers, language network, neuroscience of language, precision fMRI
GitHub-internal
A comprehensive, internal, private workspace
GitHub-internal/
├── data/*
├── results/*
├── scripts/*
├── viz/*
...
OSF / GitHub-osf
Public-access, mirror repo (subset) containing publication-ready items
extended_language_network-osf/ | OSF Storage/
├── data/
│ ├── AtlasParcels.xlsx
│ ├── recode_parcels.txt
│ └── voxel_overlap_results_average.txt
├── results/
│ ├── stats/
│ │ ├── atlas_model_stats
│ │ └── gss_n772_model_stats
│ └── tables/
│ ├── atlas_lang_responsive_rois_names.txt
│ ├── atlas_lang_selective_rois_names.txt
│ └── Table1.xlsx
├── scripts/
│ ├── 02_stats.qmd
│ └── 03_plots.qmd
...
Dropbox
Large file storage, supplemental data not natively on GitHub or OSF
Dropbox/
├── detail_all.txt
├── first_level_contrast_maps/
├── functional_language_parcels/
├── langloc_unsmoothed_statistical_maps_n86/
...
tables/
├── Table1.xlsx # The full table of atlas parcel profiles (not the same as Table1 in the manuscript)
├── Table2.xlsx # List of parcels that contain language-responsive and language-selective fROIs in the three standard cortical atlases: the DKT, Harvard-Oxford Cortical, and Glasser atlases
├── TableS1.xlsx # Functional responses to the Language, Alice (auditory language) and MD tasks in the GcSS language parcels.
├── TableS2.xlsx #
...
Table 1 Functional language parcels.
A comprehensive supplemental notebook including useful, high-level and technical information related to project conception, data collection, writing, variables of interest, and other collaborative measures is available here: Extended Language Network Project Notebook
If you use this repository or data, please cite:
@article{Wolna2025,
bibtex_show = {true},
title = {The extended language network: Language selective brain areas whose contributions to language remain to be discovered},
author = {Wolna, Agata and **Wright, Aaron** and Casto, Colton and Lipkin, Benjamin and Fedorenko, Evelina},
abstract = {Although language neuroscience has largely focused on ‘core’ left frontal and temporal brain areas and their right-hemisphere homotopes, numerous other areas—cortical, subcortical, and cerebellar—have been implicated in linguistic processing. However, these areas’ contributions to language remain unclear given that the evidence for their recruitment comes from diverse paradigms, many of which conflate language processing with perceptual, motor, or task-related cognitive processes. Using fMRI data from 772 participants performing an extensively-validated language ‘localizer’ paradigm that isolates language processing from other processes, we a) delineate a comprehensive set of areas that respond reliably to language across written and auditory modalities, and b) evaluate these areas’ selectivity for language relative to a demanding non-linguistic task. In line with prior claims, many areas outside the core fronto-temporal network respond during language processing, and most of them show selectivity for language relative to general task demands. These language-selective areas of the extended language network include areas around the temporal poles, in the medial frontal cortex, in the hippocampus, and in the cerebellum, among others. Although distributed across many parts of the brain, the extended language-selective network still only comprises ∼1.2% of the brain’s volume and is about the size of a strawberry, challenging the view that language processing is broadly distributed across the cortical surface. These newly identified language-selective areas can now be systematically characterized to decipher their contributions to language processing, including testing whether these contributions differ from those of the core language areas.},
journal = {bioRxiv},
year = {2025},
date = {2024/01/03},
volume = {},
issue = {},
pages = {},
doi = {10.1101/2025.04.02.646835},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.04.02.646835},
pdf = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.02.646835v2.full.pdf},
selected = {true},
recommended_citation = {Wolna, A., Wright, A., Casto, C., Lipkin, B., & Fedorenko, E. (2025). The extended language network: Language selective brain areas whose contributions to language remain to be discovered. *bioRxiv*, 2025-04. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.04.02.646835.}
}
This project is open source and available under the MIT License.
README.md templated from Greta Tuckute and Guillaume Noblet