# Studying semantic processing during language comprehension in humans at the single-cellular level

> **NIH NIH R01** · MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL · 2024 · $531,720

## Abstract

Studying semantic processing during language comprehension in humans at the
single-cellular level
Humans are capable of communicating extraordinarily rich and nuanced meanings through language. This
capacity surpasses that of all other animal species. Yet, despite a growing understanding of the network of
brain areas that supports semantic processing, the precise derivation of linguistic meaning in neural tissue at
the cellular-level and over the temporal scales of action potentials remains largely unknown. Over the past
several years, our collaborative group has developed unique approaches that have allowed us to record from
individual neurons in the language-dominant prefrontal and temporal cortex in participants performing
structured linguistic tasks. Here, we will use this extraordinarily rare opportunity together with our group’s
unique combined expertise in linguistic theory, human intraoperative neurophysiology, single-neuronal
recordings and computational modeling in order to study in detail, for the first time, how semantic
information is encoded at a cellular-level during speech and the degree to which single neurons respond
selectivity to specific semantic domains, whether semantic information can be robustly decoded from neural
activity, the extent to which it can be generalized across linguistic materials and the process by which these
neuronal activities maps onto the fine-grained semantic relationships between individual words. Using
structured linguistic manipulations and violations and by employing information-theoretic techniques, we
will also crucially examine whether certain neurons in humans respond selectively to linguistic compared to
non-linguistic information, how they engaged in lexico-semantic or syntactic processes, how they track the
real-time context-dependent inferred meanings of individual words during speech and how these mixed
representations and computations are distributed within frontal and temporal cortical populations in the
language-dominant hemisphere. Taken together, this novel cross-institutional, inter-disciplinary
collaborative effort promises to provide a fundamental new platform by which to begin studying the basic
cellular mechanisms that underlie human language and unprecedented new insight into the cellular-level
processing and representation of linguistic meaning during language comprehension in humans.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10784740
- **Project number:** 5R01DC019653-03
- **Recipient organization:** MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL
- **Principal Investigator:** Ziv Williams
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $531,720
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2022-03-15 → 2027-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10784740

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10784740, Studying semantic processing during language comprehension in humans at the single-cellular level (5R01DC019653-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10784740. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*