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ENLARGE IMAGE

Reading lesson. A new study identifies

several brain regions (colored areas)

that respond more strongly to text in

people w ho can read.

Credit: S. Dehaene et al., Science

JU N E 25 , 2012

 

JU N E 22 , 2012

 

JU N E 19 , 2012

 

Written language poses a puzz le for neuroscientists . Unlocking the

meaning in a s tring of symbols requires complex neural circuitry. Yet

humans have been reading and writing for only about 5000 years—too

short for major evolutionary changes. Instead, reading likely depends oncircuits that originally evolved for other purposes. But which ones?

To investigate, cognitive neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene of the Institut

National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale in Gif-sur-Yvette,

France, teamed up with colleagues in France, Belgium, Portugal, and

Brazil to scan the brains of 63 volunteers, including 31 who learned to read

in childhood, 22 who learned as adults, and 10 who were illiterate. Those

who could read, regardless of when they learned, exhibited more vigorous

responses to written words in several areas of the brain that process what

we see, the group reports online today in Science. Based on previous

work, Dehaene has argued that one of these areas, at the junction of the

left occipital and temporal lobes of the brain, is especially important for 

reading. In literate, but not illiterate, people, written words also triggered brain activity in parts of the left temporal

lobe that respond to spoken language. That suggests that reading utilizes brain circuits that evolved to support

spoken language, a much older innovation in human communication, Dehaene says.

It makes sense that reading would rely on brain regions that originally evolved to process vision and spoken

language, says Dehaene. But this repurposing may have involved a tradeoff. The researchers found that in people

who learned to read early in life, a smaller region of the left occipital-temporal cortex responded to images of faces

than in the illiterate volunteers. Dehaene suggests that reading may compete with other tasks—such as face

perception—for access to this part of the brain. If so, could learning to read make people worse at recognizing

faces? Experiments to test this are already under way, but Dehaene says he doesn't expect to see a huge

difference.

 All in all, the findings support Dehaene's argument that the left occipital-temporal cortex is a region where the brain

has made important adaptations for written language, says Brian Wandell, a neuroscientist at Stanford University in

Palo Alto, California. Researchers have long thought that the brain becomes less flexible with age, so it's also

interesting that this region seems to change even in adults who learn to read, he says. "Showing that this area is

responsive to learning throughout life is a real contribution."

"Dehaene and his group have done a remarkable job," adds Manuel Carreiras, scientific director of the Basque

Center on Cognition, Brain and Language in Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain. "It is really striking that schooling

profoundly refines cortical organization." But Carreiras notes that not everyone accepts Dehaene's hypothesis that

the left occipital-temporal cortex is specialized for reading. The suggestion that literacy competes with face

perception in this part of the brain is likely to be controversial as well, he says. "The results . .. will definitely cause

discussion in the scientific community."

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