Schedule of Events | Symposia

Development of Language Processing and Attention in Adolescence: A Longitudinal fMRI Study

Poster Session E - Monday, March 31, 2025, 2:30 – 4:30 pm EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Nea Rinne¹ (nea.rinne@helsinki.fi), Patrik Wikman¹, Sofia Lindholm¹, Juha Salmi^2,3, Kimmo Alho^1,4; ¹University of Helsinki, ²University of Oulu, ³Aalto University, ⁴Advanced Magnetic Imaging Centre, Aalto University

Language is a fundamental component of human cognition and communication, yet the development of language processing during adolescence remains poorly understood. While much research of language processing has focused on childhood or comparisons between children and adults, adolescence—a period of significant brain and cognitive maturation—has been largely overlooked. We used longitudinal functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to explore the neural basis of semantic processing during adolescence. Data were collected at three timepoints from 27 participants at approximately two-year intervals, at the ages of 13, 16, and under 18. During the fMRI measurements, participants were presented with written or spoken sentences, with distractor sentences in the other modality either present or absent. Half of the sentences were semantically congruent, and the other half semantically incongruent (e.g., “This morning I had coffee with milk/socks”). Participants attended to the written or spoken sentences and reported whether the attended sentence was congruent or incongruent. The fMRI data was analysed using Multivariate Repeated Measures (MRM) tool. Participants performed better at older ages in both reading and listening tasks, with performance measured as the percentage of correct responses. We observed increased brain activity in the left temporal and frontal regions during incongruent sentences and in frontal regions during distracted conditions. While whole-brain analyses did not reveal significant longitudinal effects, region-of-interest analyses showed age-related neural changes in the inferior frontal gyrus, middle temporal gyrus, and superior temporal gyrus. These findings indicate that neural processes underlying semantic processing continue to develop through adolescence.

Topic Area: LANGUAGE: Development & aging