NSF/SBE-BSF: Biological mechanisms underlying the acquisition of reading skills

当孩子们体验世界和他们周围的人时，人类行为的许多方面，如走路、微笑和学习语言，都会自然发展。然而，阅读不是一种自然的发展。相反，学习阅读需要指导、训练和练习。这个受资助项目的目标是调查在两个月的阅读指导过程中，儿童的大脑是如何变化的。这项建议利用研究小组开发的尖端测量技术和软件算法来描述学习阅读的生物过程。在一个为期八周的精读教学计划中，6至12岁的儿童将被纵向跟踪。定量磁共振成像(MRI)测量对髓鞘形成、新组织大分子的产生以及脑白质内轴突的堆积密度的变化很敏感，将用于监测学习期间脑组织结构的变化。功能磁共振成像将被用来模拟大脑阅读电路执行的计算如何随着阅读指令的变化而变化。通过整合多种测量模式，并对不同年龄段的儿童进行抽样，该项目将确定大脑依赖经验的可塑性能力在小学期间如何变化，以及是否可以基于儿童阅读电路的模型来预测学习。为此，该项目解决了三个主要挑战：(1)确定人类脑白质的哪些特性随着阅读指令的变化而变化；(2)测量大脑的可塑性能力在发育过程中如何变化；以及(3)建立大脑回路结构变化与皮质计算之间的关系模型。了解发育中的大脑如何建立回路，将印刷符号快速转化为意义，这是一项重要的科学挑战，对教育和阅读障碍的治疗具有重要意义。对生物和认知发展之间相互作用的更深入理解将导致针对儿童大脑成熟的独特模式而定制的创新教育方法。

Many aspects of human behavior such as walking, smiling, and learning a language develop naturally as children experience the world and people around them. However reading is not a naturally occurring development. Rather, learning to read requires instruction, training, and practice. The goal of this funded project is to investigate how children's brains change over the course of two months of reading instruction. The present proposal capitalizes on cutting-edge measurement techniques and software algorithms that the research team has developed, to characterize the biological processes that underlie learning to read.Children between six and twelve years of age will be followed longitudinally during an eight-week, intensive reading instruction program. Quantitative Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) measurements that are sensitive to changes in myelination, the creation of new tissue macromolecules, and the packing density of axons within the white matter will be used to monitor changes in brain tissue structure during learning. Functional MRI will be used to model how the computations performed by the brain's reading circuitry change in response to reading instruction. By integrating multiple measurement modalities, and sampling children of different ages, this project will determine how the brain's capacity for experience-dependent plasticity changes over the course of elementary school and whether learning can be predicted based on a model of a child's reading circuitry. Toward this end, the project tackles 3 major challenges: (1) Determine what properties of human white matter change in response to reading instruction; (2) Measure how the brain's capacity for plasticity changes over development; and (3) Model the relationship between changes in brain circuit structure and cortical computation. Understanding how the developing brain builds circuits to rapidly translate printed symbols into meaning is an important scientific challenge with implications for education and the treatment of reading disabilities. A deeper understanding of the interplay between biological and cognitive development will lead to innovative approaches to education that are tailored to a child's unique pattern of brain maturation.