Learning to Read Improves the Structure of the Arcuate Fasciculus

Schotten, Michel Thiebaut de; Cohen, Laurent; Amemiya, Eduardo; Braga, Lúcia Willadino; Dehaene, Stanislas

doi:10.1093/cercor/bhs383

Cited by 183 publications

(141 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…Thus, we limited our group analysis to the systematic comparison of the three literacy groups (i.e., literates, illiterates, and ex-illiterates). This analysis concurred with our previous fMRI (1) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) findings (68) in suggesting that virtually all effects of literacy, early or late, may be obtained at an adult age in unschooled individuals. In all of our measures, the ex-illiterates fell in between the pure illiterates and the early-schooled literates.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Timing the impact of literacy on visual processing

Pegado

Comerlato

Ventura

et al. 2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Learning to read requires the acquisition of an efficient visual procedure for quickly recognizing fine print. Thus, reading practice could induce a perceptual learning effect in early vision. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in literate and illiterate adults, we previously demonstrated an impact of reading acquisition on both high-and low-level occipitotemporal visual areas, but could not resolve the time course of these effects. To clarify whether literacy affects early vs. late stages of visual processing, we measured event-related potentials to various categories of visual stimuli in healthy adults with variable levels of literacy, including completely illiterate subjects, early-schooled literate subjects, and subjects who learned to read in adulthood (ex-illiterates). The stimuli included written letter strings forming pseudowords, on which literacy is expected to have a major impact, as well as faces, houses, tools, checkerboards, and false fonts. To evaluate the precision with which these stimuli were encoded, we studied repetition effects by presenting the stimuli in pairs composed of repeated, mirrored, or unrelated pictures from the same category. The results indicate that reading ability is correlated with a broad enhancement of early visual processing, including increased repetition suppression, suggesting better exemplar discrimination, and increased mirror discrimination, as early as ∼100-150 ms in the left occipitotemporal region. These effects were found with letter strings and false fonts, but also were partially generalized to other visual categories. Thus, learning to read affects the magnitude, precision, and invariance of early visual processing.reading | brain plasticity | education R eading is a cultural activity in which contemporary humans have considerable training. Fluently accessing the sounds and meanings of written words requires very fast and efficient visual recognition of letter strings, at rates exceeding 100 words/ min. Neuroimaging studies have begun to show how learning to read modulates the functioning of the visual system, from early retinotopic areas (1, 2) to extrastriate occipital and temporal cortex (1, 3, 4). In particular, a restricted region of the left occipitotemporal cortex, the visual word form area (VWFA), is robustly activated when orthographic stimuli are presented to literate subjects.This VWFA activation is reproducible across participants and writing systems (5, 6), even when orthographic stimuli are flashed unconsciously (7). Orthographic processing in the VWFA is thought to be very fast, peaking at ∼170-200 ms (8-10), and is colateralized to the dominant hemisphere for language (11,12). Reading practice enhances activation of the VWFA (1, 13, 14), even in dyslexic children (15). Reading also modulates nonvisual circuits, such as the spoken language network (1,14,16,17).In addition to these positive effects of learning to read, the theory of neuronal recycling (18) proposes that literacy acquisition also may have a negative "unlearning" e...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Timing the impact of literacy on visual processing

Pegado

Comerlato

Ventura

et al. 2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Yet, given the existence of functional and anatomical connections between the visual and auditory systems (Booth et al, 2002;Thiebaut De Schotten et al, 2014;Vagharchakian et al, 2012;Yeatman et al, 2011), it is likely that processing written words also induces activation in the spoken language system, although to a lesser extent. To further examine how the spoken language system is influenced by written words' visibility and task demand, we restricted our analyses to the cortical areas that process acoustic, phonological and semantic contents of spoken sentences, using the subject-specific approach proposed by NietoCastañón and Fedorenko (2012).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Automaticity of phonological and semantic processing during visual word recognition

Pattamadilok

Chanoine²,

Pallier

et al. 2017

NeuroImage

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A B S T R A C TReading involves activation of phonological and semantic knowledge. Yet, the automaticity of the activation of these representations remains subject to debate. The present study addressed this issue by examining how different brain areas involved in language processing responded to a manipulation of bottom-up (level of visibility) and top-down information (task demands) applied to written words. The analyses showed that the same brain areas were activated in response to written words whether the task was symbol detection, rime detection, or semantic judgment. This network included posterior, temporal and prefrontal regions, which clearly suggests the involvement of orthographic, semantic and phonological/articulatory processing in all tasks. However, we also found interactions between task and stimulus visibility, which reflected the fact that the strength of the neural responses to written words in several high-level language areas varied across tasks. Together, our findings suggest that the involvement of phonological and semantic processing in reading is supported by two complementary mechanisms. First, an automatic mechanism that results from a taskindependent spread of activation throughout a network in which orthography is linked to phonology and semantics. Second, a mechanism that further fine-tunes the sensitivity of high-level language areas to the sensory input in a task-dependent manner.

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“…Since functional connectivity measures can be dependent on the structural integrity of white matter connections that facilitate communication between functionally associated brain grey matter regions (Koch et al, 2002;Griecius et al, 2009), the acquiring of financial literacy might also have an impact upon indices of white matter integrity in the brain. Further supporting this notion, increases in acquired general literacy have been observed to result in increasing white matter density and anatomical connectivity between brain grey matter regions in adulthood (Carrieras et al, 2009;Thiebaut de Shotten et al, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 76%

IC‐P‐152: Financial literacy is associated with white matter integrity in old age

Han

Boyle

Arfanakis

et al. 2015

Alzheimer's & Dementia

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Financial literacy, the ability to understand, access, and utilize information in ways that contribute to optimal financial outcomes, is important for independence and wellbeing in old age. We previously reported that financial literacy is associated with greater functional connectivity between brain regions in old age. Here, we tested the hypothesis that higher financial literacy would be associated with greater white matter integrity in old age. Participants included 346 persons without dementia (mean age=81.36, mean education=15.39, male/female=79/267, mean MMSE=28.52) from the Rush Memory and Aging Project. Financial literacy was assessed using a series of questions imbedded as part of an ongoing decision making study. White matter integrity was assessed with diffusion anisotropy measured with diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DTI). We tested the hypothesis that higher financial literacy is associated with higher diffusion anisotropy in white matter, adjusting for the effects of age, education, sex, and white matter hyperintense lesions. We then repeated the analysis also adjusting for cognitive function. Analyses revealed regions with significant positive associations between financial literacy and diffusion anisotropy, and many remained significant after accounting for cognitive function. White matter tracts connecting right hemisphere temporal-parietal brain regions were particularly

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Learning to Read Improves the Structure of the Arcuate Fasciculus

Cited by 183 publications

References 71 publications

Timing the impact of literacy on visual processing

Timing the impact of literacy on visual processing

Automaticity of phonological and semantic processing during visual word recognition

IC‐P‐152: Financial literacy is associated with white matter integrity in old age

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