User:Literacystudent/Reading

Latest neuroimages have allowed researchers to believe that the left lateralized cortex of the brain is what is linked to reading abilitiess .. There have been correlations between specific brain regions in the left hemisphere of the cerebral cortex during different reading activities.

It should be noted that although it is not included in most meta-analytical studies, the sensorimotor cortex of the brain is the most active region of the brain during reading. This is often disregarded because it is associated solely with movement ; however, in a 2014 an fMRI study done with adults and children participants where bodily movement was restricted while reading was done. During this study, strong evidence revealed that this region may be correlated with automatic word processing and decoding. The results of this study found this portion of the brain to be highly active in persons who were learning/struggling to read (children, those diagnosed with dyslexia, and those new to the English language) and less active in adult fluent readers.

The occipital-parietal region, or more specifically fusiform gyrus portion of the the region, is where the brain's VWFA is located. VWFA, which stands for Visual Word Form Area, is believed to be responsible for the brain's ability to read visually. This area of the brain tends to be activated when words are being written orthographically, as found in a study in 2002 where participants were presented with word and non-word activities. During the word activities, this portion of the brain was extremely active; however, during the activities that did not involve graphemes, the brain was less active. Participants with dyslexia remained outliers, with this area of the brain being consistently under active in both scenarios.

The two major regions of the brain associated with phonological skills are the temperal-parietal region and the Perisylvian Region. In an fMRI study conducted 2001, participants were presented with written words, verbal frequency words, and verbal psuedo-words. The dorsal (upper) portion of the temperal- parietal region was the most active during the psuedo-words and the ventral (lower) portion was more active during frequency words, with the exception of subjects diagnosed with dyslexia who showed no impairment to their ventral region but under-activation in the dorsal portion.

The Perisylvian Region, which is the portion of the brain believed to connect Brocca's and Wernicke's area, is another region that is highly active during phonological activities where participants are asked to verbalized known and unknown words. Damage to this portion of this brain directly affects a person's ability to speak cohesively and with sense; furthermore, this portion of the brain activity remains consistent for both dyslexic and non-dyslexic readers.

The inferior frontal region is a much more complex region of the brain, and it's association with reading is not necessarily linear, for it is active in several reading related activities. Several studies have recorded it's activity in association with comprehension and processing skills, as well as spelling and working memory Although the exact role of this portion of the brain is still debatable, several studies indicate that this area of the brain tends to be more active in readers who have been diagnosed with dyslexia and less active when treatment is successfully undergone.

In addition to regions on the cortex, which is considered gray matter on fMRI's, there are several white matter fasciculus that are also active during different reading activities. These three regions are what connects the three respected cortex regions as the brain reads, thus it is responsible for the brains cross-model integration involved in reading. Three connective fasciculus that are prominently active during reading are the following: the left arcuate faciculus, the left inferior longitudinal faciculus, and the superior longitudinal fasciculus. All three areas are found to be weaker in readers diagnosed with dyslexia. ]

The cerebellum, which is not a part of the cerebral cortex, is also believed to play an important role in reading. When the cerebellum is impaired, victims struggle with many executive functioning and organizational skills both inside and outside of their reading ability. In a synthetic fMRI study, specific activities that displayed significant cerebellum involvement included automatization, word accuracy, and reading speed.