Biology subjects

D'Mello, A. M.

Publications and source records attributed to D'Mello, A. M..

6 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

The cerebellum specializes for language even in the absence of contralateral neocortical inputs

Long considered a structure dedicated primarily to motor control, the cerebellum is now known to contain regions that respond selectively to language. However, how cerebellar language specialization emerges during development remains unknown. The prevailing proposal is that cerebellar functional specialization critically depends on inputs from the contralateral neocortex, received through well-established reciprocal cortico-cerebellar connections. Here, we test this proposal in two individuals with atypical brain development: EG, a right-handed woman who lacks most of her left temporal lobe (presumably from birth) and whose neocortical language network resides in her right hemisphere, and C1, an individual missing the entire left cerebral hemisphere from birth. Using precision functional MRI in EG and a cohort of 74 typically-developing adults, we find that EG's cerebellar language network shows a strong left-hemispheric bias, mirroring the atypical lateralization of language in her cerebral cortex, while preserving canonical topography and response profiles of the language-dominant cerebellar regions. Critically, however, EG's right cerebellar hemisphere also responds to language and even contains a language-selective region despite the absence of language regions in the neocortical left hemisphere. We replicate these cerebellar findings in C1, a more extreme case who is missing the entire left hemisphere. These results show that the cerebellum develops language sensitivity despite the absence of contralateral inputs in the face of early injury. Together, these findings challenge the view that cerebellar specialization critically requires contralateral neocortical inputs, and point instead to some degree of intrinsic neocortex-independent cerebellar organization.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2026

Neurodiversity in the brain: More variable localization of face regions in autism

A fundamental principle in human neuroscience is that the brain is organized into distinct functional regions specialized for particular processes. These functional regions develop early and are shaped by sensory experiences. Strikingly, the precise location of these functional regions is relatively consistent across individuals, with specific regions found in stereotyped locations with respect to the macroanatomy (e.g., particular sulci and gyri). An important question is how flexible this functional neuroanatomy is, particularly in neurodevelopmental disorders like autism which are characterized by atypical brain development and behavior. Here, we investigated this question by focusing on the organization of the face-processing network -- a well-characterized system of regions that are reliably localized across neurotypical individuals, including, famously, the fusiform face area. Using precision fMRI, we identified subject-specific face-sensitive regions in the brains of autistic and neurotypical adults, and assessed their topographical alignment across individuals. Face regions in autism were globally and highly variably displaced - located farther from their expected locations in the brain relative to much more homogenous localization in neurotypical adults. Autistic individuals whose face regions were more displaced had greater sociocommunicative challenges. In contrast, the spatial organization of object-sensitive regions was not affected. These findings suggest that the spatial organization of the face network is atypical in autism, with behaviorally meaningful increased variability in the precise location of face-sensitive areas, and highlights the importance of individualized approaches in neuroimaging. Significance StatementThe human brain is organized into specialized functional regions positioned in remarkably consistent locations across individuals. It is unclear how altered neurodevelopment affects this organization. Using precision fMRI, we found that autism was characterized by globally and highly variably displaced face-sensitive functional brain regions. Atypical spatial organization of these regions was associated with greater sociocommunicative difficulties. In contrast, the spatial organization of object-sensitive regions did not differ in autism. These findings reveal that functional neuroanatomy in autism is altered in category-specific ways, with direct relevance to core sociocommunicative features of the condition. This work underscores the importance of individualized brain mapping in neuroimaging and may shed light on inconsistent findings in previous group-level neuroimaging studies.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2025

The cerebellar components of the human language network

The cerebellums capacity for neural computation is arguably unmatched. Yet despite now ample evidence of cerebellar contributions to cognition, including language, its precise role in language processing remains debated. Here, we systematically characterize cerebellar language-responsive regions using precision fMRI. We identify four cerebellar regions that respond to language across modalities (Experiments 1a-b, n=754). One region--spanning Crus I/II/lobule VIIb--is selective for language relative to diverse non-linguistic perceptual, cognitive, and motor tasks (Experiments 2a-f, n=732), and the rest exhibit mixed-selective profiles, responding strongly to language but also to one or more of the non-linguistic conditions. Similar to the neocortical language system, the language-selective region is engaged by sentence-level meanings during comprehension and production (Experiments 3a-b, n=100) and shows fine-grained sensitivity to linguistic processing difficulty (Experiment 3c, n=5). Further, this regions response to language is not due to the frequent presence of social content in language, as it is strongly engaged by both social and nonsocial sentences (Experiment 3d, n=10). Finally, all four regions, but especially Crus I/II/VIIb, are functionally connected to the neocortical language system (Experiment 4, n=85). We propose that these cerebellar regions constitute components of the extended language network, with one region supporting linguistic semantic processing and closely mirroring the selectivity of the neocortical language network, and the other three plausibly integrating information from diverse neocortical regions.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2025

Incorporating special interests to investigate the language system in autism: A feasibility pilot fMRI study

Most autistic individuals have sustained, focused interests in particular topics or activities. In some cases, these special interests have been shown to motivate communicative behaviors, a domain in which many autistic individuals experience challenges. We conducted a pilot study with 15 autistic children (ages 8.18 - 13.27 years, mean(SD)= 11.17(1.62), 3 female/11 male/1 nonbinary), comparing brain responses elicited by short narratives tailored to individuals special interests to responses elicited by generic, non-tailored narratives. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we found that autistic children did not show typical language responses to generic narratives. However, they did show heightened responses to the narratives that incorporated their special interests relative to the generic narratives in language regions and in regions associated with reward and self-reference. Brain responses for personalized narratives were also more consistent across children than responses for the generic narratives. These results suggest that personalizing stimuli by incorporating special interests might be a promising approach for neuroimaging in autistic participants. LAY SUMMARYIn a pilot sample of autistic children, we found that listening to short narratives tailored to each childs special interest elicited higher responses in the brain than listening to non-personalized narratives. Brain responses across children were also more similar for the special interest narratives. Thus, personalizing stimuli to special interests may be a promising approach for neuroimaging studies of autism.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2023

Personal interests amplify engagement of language regions in the brains of children with and without autism

Cognition is shaped by individual experiences and interests. However, to study cognition in the brain, researchers typically use generic stimuli that are the same across all individuals. Language, in particular, is animated and motivated by several highly personal factors that are typically not accounted for in neuroimaging study designs, such as "interest" in a topic. Due to its inherently personal and idiosyncratic nature, it is unknown how interest in a topic modulates language processing in the brain. We conducted functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in 20 children (ages 6.98-12.01 years, mean(SD)=9.35(1.52), 5 female/15 male) as they listened to personalized narratives about a topic of specific interest, as well as to non-personalized generic narratives. We found that personalized narratives about a topic of interest increased activation in canonical language areas, as well as in reward and self-reference regions. Strikingly, we found that activation patterns elicited by topics of personal interest were more consistent across children, despite their idiosyncratic nature, than activation patterns elicited by narratives about an identical generic topic. These results reinforce the critical role that personal interests play in language processing in the human brain, and demonstrate the feasibility of using a personalized neuroimaging approach to study the effects of individually-varying factors such as interest in the brain.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

Functional Territories of Human Dentate Nucleus

Anatomical connections link the cerebellar cortex with multiple distinct sensory, motor, association, and paralimbic areas of the cerebrum. These projections allow a topographically precise cerebellar modulation of multiple domains of neurological function, and underscore the relevance of the cerebellum for the pathophysiology of numerous disorders in neurology and psychiatry. The majority of fibers that exit the cerebellar cortex synapse in the dentate nuclei (DN) before reaching extracerebellar structures such as cerebral cortex. Although the DN have a central position in the anatomy of the cerebello-cerebral circuits, the functional neuroanatomy of human DN remains largely unmapped. Neuroimaging research has redefined broad categories of functional division in the human brain showing that primary processing, attentional (task positive) processing, and default-mode (task negative) processing are three central poles of neural macro-scale functional organization. This new macro-scale understanding of the range and poles of brain function has revealed that a broad spectrum of human neural processing categories (primary, task positive, task negative) is represented not only in the cerebral cortex, but also in the thalamus, striatum, and cerebellar cortex. Whether functional organization in DN obeys a similar set of macroscale divisions, and whether DN are yet another compartment of representation of a broad spectrum of human neural processing categories, remains unknown. Here we show for the first time that human DN is optimally divided into three functional territories as indexed by high spatio-temporal resolution resting-state MRI in 60 healthy adolescents, and that these three distinct territories contribute uniquely to default-mode, salience-motor, and visual brain networks. These conclusions are supported by novel analytical strategies in human studies of DN organization, including 64-channel MRI imaging, data-driven methods, and replication in an independent sample. Our findings provide a systems neuroscience substrate for cerebellar output to influence multiple broad categories of neural control - namely default- mode, attentional, and multiple unimodal streams of information processing including motor and visual. They also provide a validated data-driven mapping of functions in human DN, crucial for the design of methodology and interpretation of results in future neuroimaging studies of brain function and dysfunction.

neuroscience↗