The core language network separated from other networks during primate evolution

In their Review article earlier this year, Fedorenko, Ivanova & Regev (Fedorenko, E., Ivanova, A. A. & Regev, T. I. The language network as a natural kind within the broader landscape of the human brain. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 25, 289–312 (2024))¹ propose a functional separation between the core language network and other perceptual, motor and higher-level cognitive components of communication-related networks in the left hemisphere of the human brain. In the ‘Open questions and a way forward’¹ section that ends their Review, the authors discuss the need for cross-species comparative research to disentangle how these brain networks came to support human language. Here, we suggest that the authors’ functional separation of a core language network and other components in the human brain is grounded in the evolution of two separate structural networks within primate brains.