RT Conference Proceedings
T1 The impact of early and late literacy on the functional connectivity of vision and
A1 López-Barroso, Diana
A1 Thiebaut de Schotten, Michel
A1 Morais, José
A1 Kolinsky, Régine
A1 Braga, Lucía W.
A1 Guerreiro-Tauil, Alexandre
A1 Dehaene, Stanislas
A1 Cohen, Laurent
AB Introduction: Learning to read leads to functional and structural changes in the cortical regions related tovision and language. The visual word-form area (VWFA) is though to play a key role in the interaction betweenthese two systems (Dehaene et al. 2015). For instance, the VWFA is activated not only from bottom-up duringreading but also in a top-down manner during speech listening without visual stimulation (Dehaene et al. 2010).The objective of this study was twofolded: how literacy acquisition affects four intrinsic functional connectivitynetworks related to vision and language (a dorsal language [DLN], a bilateral auditory [AN], a low-level[LLVN] and a high-level visual [HLVN] networks); and to explore the role of the VWFA as an interface betweenhigh-level vision and language functions.Methods: Independent component analysis (ICA) was applied to functional magnetic resonance imaging datafrom 40 adult participants with variable levels of literacy (illiterate, late literate and early literate). The fourfunctional connectivity networks were compared across groups using dual-regression (Filippini et al. 2009). Inaddition, we directly explored the functional connectivity between the VWFA and each of the studied networks.Finally, the strengh of connectivity between the VWFA and each network was compared across groups andcorrelated with individual reading fluency scores.Results: ICA produced 40 networks, and spatial crosscorrelation was used to identify the four networks ofinterest. Literacy was positively correlated with increased connectivity within the four networks. A majordifference separating early literate from illiterate and late literate subjects was found. The connectivity betweenthe VWFA and the DLN increased with literacy. Conversely, the strength of connectivity between the VWFA andthe HLVN correlated negatively with literacy. Finally, , the HLVN-VWFA connectivity was negatively correlatedwith reading scores while the connectivity between the DLN-VWFA was positively correlated with readingscores.Discussion:Literacy has a strong influence on the visual and language functional networks. Literacy modifiesthe VWFA connectivity, by making it functionally closer to the language system, and more distinct from otherassociative visual areas that do not contribute to the reading process. The current results suggest that earlyacquisition of literacy plays a critical role for the tuning of the functional brain architecture.References: -Dehaene S et al. Nat Rev Neurosci.(2015)16:234 244-Dehaene S et al. Science.(2010)330:1359–1364-Filippini N et al. PNAS.(2009)106, 7209–7214
YR 2017
FD 2017-02-03
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10630/12882
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10630/12882
LA eng
NO Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech.
DS RIUMA. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Málaga
RD 29 ene 2026