Mathematical reasoning uses little area related to language.

Is mathematics based on a recent and specifically human ability to use language, or is it a cultural construct rooted in ancient, evolutionary representations of space, time, and number?

To shed light on the question, researchers from the Cognitive Neuroimaging Lab in France conducted a study , published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , in which they analyzed how the brain reacts to high-level mathematical concepts.

The investigation was conducted on two groups: 15 professional mathematicians and 15 professionals of the same academic level, but from other fields of knowledge. Each participant underwent a brain MRI while reflecting on a series of statements – 72 on advanced mathematics, covering algebra, analysis, geometry, and topology; and 18 related to general knowledge – and had four seconds to answer whether each statement was false, true, or nonsensical.

When mathematicians reflected on advanced mathematical questions, activation of bilateral intraparietal, inferior temporal, and dorsal prefrontal regions was observed. These areas, however, remained silent in response to non-mathematical statements.

"Language areas were activated only transiently during the presentation of auditory statements, whether mathematical or non-mathematical. Instead, the activations we observed during mathematical reflection occurred in areas previously associated with number encoding in humans and other animals," says an excerpt from the study.

Researchers caution that the findings should not be interpreted as implying that the brain circuits activated during mathematical reasoning are specific to that area of knowledge. According to the study, they coincide with regions previously associated with a "multiple-demand" system active in many problem-solving tasks and dissociable from language-related areas.

"Our results suggest that high-level mathematical thinking makes minimal use of language areas and instead recruits circuits initially involved in space and number. This result may explain why knowledge of number and space during early childhood predicts mathematical achievement," the researchers concluded.