Nature and nurture in language acquisition: anatomical and functional brain-imaging studies in infants

Speech processing in adults relies on precise and specialized networks, located primarily in the left hemisphere. Behavioral studies in infants indicate that a considerable amount of language learning already takes place in the first year of life in the domains of phonology, prosody and word segmentation. Thanks to neuroimaging, we can move beyond behavioral methods and examine how the infant brain processes verbal stimuli before learning. These studies reveal a structural and functional organization close to what is described in adults and suggest a strong bias for speech processing in these regions that might guide infants as they discover the properties of their native language, although no evidence can be provided as yet for speech specificity of such networks. This review is part of the INMED/TINS special issue Nature and nurture in brain development and neurological disorders, based on presentations at the annual INMED/TINS symposium (http://inmednet.com/).