Neuroscientists have found reading computer code does not rely on the regions of the brain involved in language processing. Instead, it activates the ‘multiple demand network,’ which is also recruited for complex cognitive tasks such as solving math problems or crossword puzzles.

In spite of those similarities, MIT neuroscientists have found that reading computer code does not activate the regions of the brain that are involved in language processing. Instead, it activates a distributed network called the multiple demand network, which is also recruited for complex cognitive tasks such as solving math problems or crossword puzzles.

However, although reading computer code activates the multiple demand network, it appears to rely more on different parts of the network than math or logic problems do, suggesting that coding does not precisely replicate the cognitive demands of mathematics either.

«Understanding computer code seems to be its own thing. It’s not the same as language, and it’s not the same as math and logic,» says Anna Ivanova, an MIT graduate student and the lead author of the study.

Evelina Fedorenko, the Frederick A. and Carole J. Middleton Career Development Associate Professor of Neuroscience and a member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, is the senior author of the paper, which appears today in eLife. Researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and Tufts University were also involved in the study.

Language and cognition

A major focus of Fedorenko’s research is the relationship between language and other cognitive functions. In particular, she has been studying the question of whether other functions rely on the brain’s language network, which includes Broca’s area and other regions in the left hemisphere of the brain. In previous work, her lab has shown that music and math do not appear to activate this language network.

Story Source: Materials provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Original written by Anne Trafton. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.