Brain circuits for reading

A new study suggests that brain circuits for reading may be in place earlier than expected in children. Using a scan called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain activity in children, researchers found that reading-related brain networks were in place by age seven. Researchers from the Department of Neurology, Children's National Medical Centre, Washington studied 16 children with a mean age of 7.2 years (range 5.8 to 7.9) with fMRI reading paradigms adjusted for reading level. Researchers explained that the left side of the brain is the dominant one for language skills in 95% of people. They expected that this predominance of the left-brain for reading tasks would already be apparent in children ages 5 to 7. Even though the researchers thought that reading-related brain activity would be focused on the left side of the brain in these young readers, they expected that younger children would show more reading activity on both sides of the brain than a previously studied group of older kids. In most children, the same reading-related brain network found in adults was in place by age 7. In some cases, these networks were comparable by age 5 to those seen in adults. Despite the similarity between children and adults in the development of the parts of the brain connected with reading, researchers expected that children might have more variability in how they read. It is concluded that the neural networks that process reading are strongly lateralised and regionally specific by age 6 to 7 years. Neural networks in early readers are similar to those in adults.