Developmental trajectories of reading and neural substrates: a lifespan perspective on Chinese reading

Reading is a complex cognitive skill that undergoes dynamic age-related changes across the lifespan. We investigated how associations between brain structure and reading fluency vary throughout the lifespan in native Chinese speakers using structural MRI data, alongside word- and sentence-level reading assessments in 145 healthy participants (aged 7-77 years). Our results revealed significant age-related brain-reading relationships, namely cortical thinning in bilateral middle frontal gyrus and inferior and superior parietal areas correlated with better reading in children and young adults, while positive associations emerged in older adults, indicating a shift from neural pruning to compensatory mechanisms. Beyond single morphometric features, morphometric similarity network analyses that capture coordinated variations across multiple cortical features between brain regions, demonstrated that reading fluency was associated with increased network integration in the left superior frontal and rostral middle frontal gyrus and precuneus, and greater specialization in the left caudal middle frontal gyrus. Together, these findings reveal age-related differences in reading-related neural architecture that are consistent with dynamic reorganization in logographic writing systems, highlighting how age-dependent neural plasticity interacts with reading experience to shape structural brain organization throughout the lifespan.