Effects of early neuroanatomical variants on reading skills and brain function in typical adult Italian readers

Reading is a core feature of human communication that develops throughout intensive academic training. Recently, a group of studies examined whether neuroanatomical variants that predate literacy acquisition may influence reading abilities at later stages of life, yielding mixed results. To complement and expand previous knowledge, we used multimodal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to investigate whether distinct anatomical patterns of the left occipito-temporal sulcus (OTS), which hosts the so-called "visual word form area" (VWFA), are predictive of reading skills and brain activity in typical adult readers. Overall, our findings indicate that: (1) the pattern of the left OTS is not predictive of participants' scores on reading fluency tests; (2) the pattern of the left OTS is not predictive of local brain activity during sentence-reading; (3) individual differences in the left OTS pattern are associated with the functional architecture of the left OTS as assessed by resting-state fMRI. In conclusion, while it is well-established that the acquisition of reading skills modifies brain structure and function, the predictive role of early neuroanatomical variants on reading skills and brain function in typical readers remains equivocal. Environmental and experience-related factors may have a greater and predominant role in accounting for ultimate reading abilities in healthy populations.