Development and plasticity of numerical and mathematical processing in the human brain

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In our daily lives we are constantly processing numerical information. Research has demonstrated that basic numerical and mathematical skills are crucial for school and life success. Surprisingly, mathematical skills have been found to be a stronger predictor of school success than reading abilities. Moreover, there is abundant evidence to suggest that costs of low numeracy to society are substantial. For example, individuals with low numerical abilities have been found to be more likely to offend, be unemployed and suffer from debilitating illnesses. The long-term aim of the proposed research program is to better understand how children develop basic numerical and mathematical skills and to use information from research to inform the design of evidence-based programs to measure and improve numerical skills. To explore the process by which children become numerate I use a multi-method approach that spans behavioral and neuroimaging methods. The specific aims of the present proposal are a.) to better understand how learning the meaning of numerical symbols (e.g Arabic digits) changes brain function and b.) how learning mental arithmetic and improving the strategies one uses to solve problems (e.g. moving from using fingers to aid in adding to retrieving the answers to calculation problems from memory) is reflected in the brain. To address the first of these research aims, my research team and I will study 4-7 year old children using functional brain imaging to better understand what happens in the brain when children move from viewing numerical symbols as meaningless shapes toward understanding the numerical meaning of these symbols. This research will reveal how the brain becomes specialized for symbolic number processing. In the empirical studies to address the second aim, we will evaluate the effects of arithmetic training on brain function in both children and adults. The combination of these studies will provide a richer picture into the ways in which brain pathways for number processing and calculation are laid down over the course of learning and development.