Luo Haolun, Yu Tao, Li Qun, Sheng Li
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Department of Language Science and Technology, Faculty of Humanities, Hong Kong, China.
Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Department of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Shanghai Children's Medical Center, Shanghai, China.
Neurophotonics. 2025 Jul;12(3):035012. doi: 10.1117/1.NPh.12.3.035012. Epub 2025 Sep 13.
Early language acquisition represents a fundamental achievement in cognitive development, yet the neural mechanisms underlying this process remain debated, particularly whether specialized language regions exist from early life or emerge gradually through development.
We aim to investigate the functional specialization for language processing in early childhood. We first aimed to validate an individual functional channel of interest (fCOI) approach for dissociating language and cognitive control regions in adults and then to apply this method to examine whether these functional profiles are present in toddlers.
Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy with the fCOI approach, we conducted two experiments involving adults ( , ages 18 to 26 years) and toddlers ( , ages 2 to 4 years) who completed language processing (intact versus degraded speech) and cognitive control tasks (spatial working memory task for adults, go/no-go task for toddlers).
For language regions within the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG), both adults and toddlers showed a significantly stronger response to intact versus degraded speech, with no significant modulation by cognitive demand manipulation. However, language selectivity in the homologous right hemisphere region was present only in adults. The multiple demand regions showed complementary patterns, with selectivity for cognitive control of regions within the right inferior frontal gyrus (RIFG) emerging early.
These findings provide evidence for early neural specialization of language processing in LIFG while revealing ongoing development in RIFG organization. Our results support models of early language-specific neural regions rather than gradual differentiation from domain-general mechanisms while highlighting the protracted development of language organization.
早期语言习得是认知发展中的一项基本成就，然而这一过程背后的神经机制仍存在争议，尤其是专门的语言区域是从生命早期就存在，还是在发育过程中逐渐出现。
我们旨在研究幼儿期语言处理的功能特化。我们首先旨在验证一种个体感兴趣的功能通道（fCOI）方法，用于区分成人的语言和认知控制区域，然后应用该方法来检验这些功能特征在幼儿中是否存在。
使用功能近红外光谱结合fCOI方法，我们进行了两项实验，涉及成人（ ，年龄18至26岁）和幼儿（ ，年龄2至4岁），他们完成了语言处理（完整语音与 degraded 语音）和认知控制任务（成人为空间工作记忆任务，幼儿为Go/No-Go任务）。
对于左下额叶回（LIFG）内的语言区域，成人和幼儿对完整语音与 degraded 语音的反应均显著更强，认知需求操纵未产生显著调节作用。然而，同源右半球区域的语言选择性仅在成人中存在。多个需求区域呈现出互补模式，右下额叶回（RIFG）内区域对认知控制的选择性出现得较早。
这些发现为LIFG中语言处理的早期神经特化提供了证据，同时揭示了RIFG组织的持续发育。我们的结果支持早期特定语言神经区域的模型，而非从领域通用机制逐渐分化的模型，同时突出了语言组织的长期发育。
