How the brains of elementary school children access and combine words: A normative database of basic responses and a public repository of naturalistic narrative data

小学生的大脑如何访问和组合单词：基本反应的规范数据库和自然主义叙事数据的公共存储库

• 批准号: 1923144
• 负责人: Liina Pylkkanen
• 金额: $ 56.8万
• 依托单位: New York University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-09-01 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1923144&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: How; brains; elementary; children; access

The proliferation of noninvasive methods to study brain function has revolutionized the neuroscience of language, a uniquely human ability that cannot be studied in animals. So far, most of this research has focused on the adult's brain, as opposed to the child's. Given our poor understanding of the neurobiology of language development, we lack an important background for understanding children's language disorders and for planning surgical treatments for children with neurological disorders such as epilepsy, since such surgeries need to spare language cortex. This project uses magnetoencephalography (MEG) to establish this critical background. The focus will be on two basic processes that form the foundation of human language: word retrieval and the composition of words into larger phrases. Elementary school children from New York City public schools will be invited to participate via science outreach activities in the schools. The data will be entered into a public database that will provide a resource for research and education. The experimental protocol is a combination of a tightly controlled design, built upon prior research on adults, and a naturalistic stimulus, containing fun science-themed narratives. Data from the naturalistic stimulus will offer vast analysis possibilities. To assure that the possibilities are maximally leveraged by researchers, these data will be released to the public on a rapid timescale, at the end each project year. This work will offer research opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students. The project is also a significant STEM opportunity for the participating children, as during the lab visit, the experimenter will explain the basics of MEG and how one can capture tiny magnetic fields inside human brains. Overall, the project aims to transform the neuroscience of language in children by providing the basic science that is needed for more detailed understanding to emerge in the future.The specific scientific objective of this project is to characterize the spatiotemporal profile of lexical retrieval and phrasal composition in 1st, 3rd, and 5th graders, with their parents serving as the adult controls. The experimental protocol offers (i) the first systematic spatio-temporal characterization of children's neural processing of single words and phrases, as compared to the activity profiles of the children's parents; (ii) a tightly controlled within-subjects and within-items comparison of the neural circuits involved in language comprehension vs. production in children and adults and (iii) a measurement of a simple form of dialogue, engaging both the comprehension and production of words and phrases within a brief trial. An important outcome of the research is a database, from which users will be able to download activity time-courses for specific brain regions during the three experimental tasks. Study participants will also listen to a naturalistic stimulus, with a fun science themed content designed for children. The naturalistic stimulus will allow assessing whether results from the controlled laboratory tasks scale up to a more ecologically valid setting. All MEG recordings from the project will be made publicly available. The project is a large-scale endeavor to engage a diverse sample of New York City children in a neuroscience activity that will significantly advance our understanding of how language is processed in the brains of elementary-school children.This project is co-funded by the Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12) that seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

研究大脑功能的非侵入性方法的激增彻底改变了语言神经科学，这是一种人类独特的能力，无法在动物身上进行研究。到目前为止，大部分研究都集中在成人的大脑上，而不是儿童的大脑上。鉴于我们对语言发展的神经生物学了解甚少，我们缺乏了解儿童语言障碍和为患有癫痫等神经系统疾病的儿童规划手术治疗的重要背景，因为此类手术需要保留语言皮层。该项目使用脑磁图 (MEG) 来建立这一关键背景。重点将放在构成人类语言基础的两个基本过程上：单词检索和将单词组合成更大的短语。纽约市公立学校的小学生将被邀请参加学校的科学推广活动。这些数据将被输入公共数据库，为研究和教育提供资源。该实验方案结合了严格控制的设计（基于先前对成人的研究）和自然主义刺激（包含有趣的科学主题叙述）。来自自然刺激的数据将提供巨大的分析可能性。为了确保研究人员最大限度地利用这些可能性，这些数据将在每个项目年度结束时快速向公众发布。这项工作将为研究生和本科生提供研究机会。该项目对于参与的孩子来说也是一个重要的 STEM 机会，因为在实验室参观期间，实验者将解释 MEG 的基础知识以及如何捕获人脑内部的微小磁场。总体而言，该项目旨在通过提供未来更详细的理解所需的基础科学来改变儿童语言的神经科学。该项目的具体科学目标是表征一年级、三年级和五年级学生的词汇检索和短语构成的时空特征，并以他们的父母作为成人对照。该实验方案提供了（i）与儿童父母的活动概况相比，首次系统地描述了儿童对单个单词和短语的神经处理的时空特征； (ii) 对儿童和成人语言理解与生成所涉及的神经回路进行严格控制的受试者内和项目内比较，以及 (iii) 对简单形式的对话进行测量，在简短的试验中进行单词和短语的理解和生成。该研究的一个重要成果是一个数据库，用户可以从中下载三个实验任务期间特定大脑区域的活动时间进程。研究参与者还将聆听自然刺激，以及专为儿童设计的有趣的科学主题内容。自然刺激将允许评估受控实验室任务的结果是否扩展到更生态有效的环境。该项目的所有 MEG 录音都将公开。该项目是一项大规模的努力，旨在让纽约市的不同儿童样本参与神经科学活动，这将显着增进我们对小学生大脑中语言处理方式的理解。该项目由 Discovery Research preK-12 计划 (DRK-12) 共同资助，该计划旨在通过研究显着加强 preK-12 学生和教师对科学、技术、工程和数学 (STEM) 的学习和教学。 该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。