TY - JOUR
T1 - Early development of letter specialization in left fusiform is associated with better word reading and smaller fusiform face area
AU - Centanni, Tracy M.
AU - Norton, Elizabeth S.
AU - Park, Anne
AU - Beach, Sara D.
AU - Halverson, Kelly
AU - Ozernov-Palchik, Ola
AU - Gaab, Nadine
AU - Gabrieli, John D.E.
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding NIH/NICHD (R01HD067312) The authors thank Abigail Cyr, Keri-Lee Garel, Candice Coulter, and Andrew Peach for assistance with assessment and MRI data collection. We thank the Athinoula A. Martinos Imaging Center at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT and its staff. We also thank our READ Study research testers, school coordinators and principals, and participating families. Participating schools are listed at http://gablab.mit.edu/index.php/READstudy. This work was supported by a grant from NIH/NICHD (R01HD067312) to JDEG and NG.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
PY - 2018/9
Y1 - 2018/9
N2 - A functional region of left fusiform gyrus termed “the visual word form area” (VWFA) develops during reading acquisition to respond more strongly to printed words than to other visual stimuli. Here, we examined responses to letters among 5- and 6-year-old early kindergarten children (N = 48) with little or no school-based reading instruction who varied in their reading ability. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure responses to individual letters, false fonts, and faces in left and right fusiform gyri. We then evaluated whether signal change and size (spatial extent) of letter-sensitive cortex (greater activation for letters versus faces) and letter-specific cortex (greater activation for letters versus false fonts) in these regions related to (a) standardized measures of word-reading ability and (b) signal change and size of face-sensitive cortex (fusiform face area or FFA; greater activation for faces versus letters). Greater letter specificity, but not letter sensitivity, in left fusiform gyrus correlated positively with word reading scores. Across children, in the left fusiform gyrus, greater size of letter-sensitive cortex correlated with lesser size of FFA. These findings are the first to suggest that in beginning readers, development of letter responsivity in left fusiform cortex is associated with both better reading ability and also a reduction of the size of left FFA that may result in right-hemisphere dominance for face perception.
AB - A functional region of left fusiform gyrus termed “the visual word form area” (VWFA) develops during reading acquisition to respond more strongly to printed words than to other visual stimuli. Here, we examined responses to letters among 5- and 6-year-old early kindergarten children (N = 48) with little or no school-based reading instruction who varied in their reading ability. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure responses to individual letters, false fonts, and faces in left and right fusiform gyri. We then evaluated whether signal change and size (spatial extent) of letter-sensitive cortex (greater activation for letters versus faces) and letter-specific cortex (greater activation for letters versus false fonts) in these regions related to (a) standardized measures of word-reading ability and (b) signal change and size of face-sensitive cortex (fusiform face area or FFA; greater activation for faces versus letters). Greater letter specificity, but not letter sensitivity, in left fusiform gyrus correlated positively with word reading scores. Across children, in the left fusiform gyrus, greater size of letter-sensitive cortex correlated with lesser size of FFA. These findings are the first to suggest that in beginning readers, development of letter responsivity in left fusiform cortex is associated with both better reading ability and also a reduction of the size of left FFA that may result in right-hemisphere dominance for face perception.
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U2 - 10.1111/desc.12658
DO - 10.1111/desc.12658
M3 - Article
C2 - 29504651
AN - SCOPUS:85043336282
VL - 21
JO - Developmental Science
JF - Developmental Science
SN - 1363-755X
IS - 5
M1 - e12658
ER -