An fMRI study of the neural substrates underlying both reading and spelling

描述（由申请人提供）：识字的重要性在现代社会无处不在。不幸的是，对于那些有发展性学习障碍的人或聋人来说，获得书面语言技能可能是一个挑战，因为他们没有完全接触音韵学，在发展识字技能时主要依靠正字法知识。重要的是，熟练的书面交流需要单词拼写。迄今为止，我们对拼写的神经生物学基础的理解非常有限，特别是与丰富的阅读神经特征的文献相比。尽管行为数据暗示阅读和拼写有共同的认知过程，但这些过程是否依赖于相同的神经元资源尚不清楚。拟议的实验将通过同时检查阅读和拼写的大脑基础来研究这一点。最近，一种新的功能磁共振成像（fMRI）技术被开发出来，用于探测与特定刺激或任务下大脑区域内独特或共同神经元群相关的神经活动。我们将使用这种被称为fmri适应的技术来测试关于大脑中阅读和拼写功能耦合的假设。目标1将是识别用于阅读和拼写的大脑区域。结合阅读和拼写的fmri适应范式将被用于独立确定包含选择性阅读的神经元群的区域是否也包含选择性拼写的神经元群。目的二是确定用于阅读的神经元基质是否也用于拼写。目的1中使用的fmri适应范式将用于确定是否存在包含用于阅读和拼写相同单词的神经元群的大脑区域。这些目标提供了两种互补的方法来研究阅读和拼写在大脑中的相互作用。这项工作将有助于更全面地了解书面语言技能的发展和受损情况。识字是当今学校教授的最重要的技能之一。这项提议的目标是使用功能磁共振成像来确定用于阅读单词的神经表征是否也用于拼写该单词。了解书面语言的这些不同方面是如何在神经层面上相互作用的，这与未来的研究有关，即为什么一种或两种形式的书面交流在高危人群中受损，以及如何改进干预或教学方法以适应这种理解。这对那些有发展性学习障碍的人，如阅读障碍或书写障碍，或严重依赖单词拼写知识的人，如聋人或重听人，尤其重要。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The importance of literacy pervades modern society. Unfortunately, acquiring written language skills can be a challenge for those with developmental learning disorders or for deaf individuals who, without complete access to phonology, rely primarily on orthographic knowledge when developing literacy skills. Importantly, skilled written communication requires word spelling. To date our understanding of the neurobiological basis of spelling is very limited and especially poor when compared to the rich literature available on the neural signature of reading. Although behavioral data alludes to the fact that there are common cognitive processes shared by reading and spelling, it is unknown if these processes rely on the same neuronal resources. The proposed experiments will investigate this by concurrently examining the brain basis of reading and spelling. Recently, a novel functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technique has been developed to probe neural activity associated with unique or common populations of neurons within a brain area for a given stimulus or task. We will use this technique, called fMRI-adaptation, to test hypotheses regarding the functional coupling of reading and spelling in the brain. Aim 1 will be to identify brain areas which are used for both reading and spelling. An fMRI-adaptation paradigm combining reading and spelling will be used to independently determine if regions which contain neuronal populations selective to reading also contain neuronal populations that are selective to spelling. Aim 2 will be to determine if the same neuronal substrates used to read are also used to spell. The same fMRI-adaptation paradigm used in Aim 1 will be used to determine if there are brain regions which contain populations of neurons that are used to both read and spell the same exact word. These aims provide two complementary ways to examine the interaction of reading and spelling in the brain. This work will help facilitate a more complete understanding of how written language skills both develop and are impaired. Literacy is one of the most important skills taught in schools today. The goal of this proposal is to use fMRI to determine if the neural representations used to read a word are also used to spell that word. Understanding how these different aspects of written language interact at the neural level is relevant to future research into why one or both forms of written communication are impaired in at-risk populations and how interventions or instructional approaches can be refined to accommodate this understanding. This is of particular importance for those with developmental learning disorders such as dyslexia or dysgraphia or people who rely heavily on word spelling knowledge, such as deaf or hard of hearing.