Relationship Between Resting State Functional Connectivity and Reading-Related Behavioural Measures in 69 Adults
Joe Bathelt1,2, Kathleen Rastle1, J S H Taylor3
1Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway University of London, UK.
Neurobiology of Language (Cambridge, Mass.)
|June 28, 2024
Summary
Resting-state functional connectivity between the visual word form area (VWFA) and dorsal brain regions is linked to phonological skills like spoonerisms. Connectivity with ventral regions did not show significant associations with reading abilities.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Science
- Psycholinguistics
Background:
- Reading involves distinct computational pathways: print-to-sound (dorsal stream) and print-to-meaning (ventral stream).
- Neuroimaging studies link specific brain regions, including the dorsal stream (e.g., dIFG) and ventral stream (e.g., anterior fusiform), to these reading pathways.
- The visual word form area (VWFA) is a key region in visual word recognition.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the relationship between resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) of the VWFA and reading-related skills.
- To determine if connectivity with dorsal or ventral reading regions correlates with phonological, lexical-semantic, and general literacy skills.
Main Methods:
- Examined RSFC between the VWFA and dorsal/ventral brain regions in 69 typical adults.
- Correlated RSFC measures with performance on phonological (nonword reading, repetition, spoonerisms), lexical-semantic (vocabulary), and general literacy (spelling) tasks.
- Utilized whole-brain and region-of-interest analyses for pre-registered and exploratory investigations.
Main Results:
- Spoonerisms performance positively correlated with RSFC between the VWFA and left dorsal regions (dorsal inferior frontal gyrus [dIFG], parietal cortex).
- Exploratory analyses revealed positive correlations between VWFA-dIFG connectivity and nonword repetition, spelling, and vocabulary.
- No significant associations were found between VWFA connectivity with ventral stream regions and any behavioral measures.
Conclusions:
- RSFC between the VWFA and dorsal reading network regions is associated with phonological processing and general literacy skills.
- Complex tasks with high variability, like spoonerisms and spelling, may better reveal resting-state brain-behavior associations.
- Future research should use latent variables to more precisely link specific reading subprocesses to neural connectivity.
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