Where is human language processed in the brain independent of its form? We addressed this issue by analyzing the cortical responses to spoken, written and signed sentences at the level of individual subjects. By applying a novel fingerprinting method based on the distributed pattern of brain activity, we identified a left-lateralized network composed by the superior temporal gyrus/sulcus (STG/STS), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), precentral gyrus/sulcus (PCG/PCS), and supplementary motor area (SMA). In these regions, the local distributed activity pattern induced by any of the three language modalities can predict the activity pattern induced by the other two modalities, and such cross-modal prediction is individual-specific. The prediction is successful for speech-sign bilinguals across all possible modality pairs, but fails for monolinguals across sign-involved pairs. In comparison, conventional group-mean focused analysis detects shared cortical activations across modalities only in the STG, PCG/PCS and SMA, and the shared activations were found in both groups. This study reveals the core language system in the brain that is shared by spoken, written and signed language, and demonstrates that it is possible and desirable to utilize the information of individual differences for functional brain mapping.

中文翻译：

---

用个体指纹识别人脑中的超模态语言网络

人类语言在大脑中在哪里处理，与其形式无关？我们通过分析个体受试者对口语、书面语和手语句子的皮层反应来解决这个问题。通过应用基于大脑活动分布模式的新型指纹识别方法，我们确定了一个由颞上回/脑沟 (STG/STS)、额下回 (IFG)、中央前回/脑沟 (PCG/ PCS) 和辅助运动区 (SMA)。在这些区域中，由三种语言模态中的任何一种诱发的局部分布式活动模式都可以预测其他两种模态诱发的活动模式，这种跨模态预测是个体特定的。该预测对于所有可能的模态对的语音-符号双语者都是成功的，但对于涉及符号的对的单语者失败。相比之下，传统的组均值聚焦分析仅在 STG、PCG/PCS 和 SMA 中检测到跨模态的共享皮质激活，并且在两组中都发现了共享激活。这项研究揭示了大脑中由口语、书面语和手语共享的核心语言系统，并表明利用个体差异信息进行功能性大脑映射是可能的和可取的。