Gaillard Raphaël, Naccache Lionel, Pinel Philippe, Clémenceau Stéphane, Volle Emmanuelle, Hasboun Dominique, Dupont Sophie, Baulac Michel, Dehaene Stanislas, Adam Claude, Cohen Laurent
INSERM, U562, CEA/DSV, IFR 49, Orsay, France.
Neuron. 2006 Apr 20;50(2):191-204. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2006.03.031.
Models of the "visual word form system" postulate that a left occipitotemporal region implements the automatic visual word recognition required for efficient reading. This theory was assessed in a patient in whom reading was explored with behavioral measures, fMRI, and intracranial local field potentials. Prior to surgery, when reading was normal, fMRI revealed a normal mosaic of ventral visual selectivity for words, faces, houses, and tools. Intracranial recordings demonstrated that the left occipitotemporal cortex responded with a short latency to conscious but also to subliminal words. Surgery removed a small portion of word-responsive occipitotemporal cortex overlapping with the word-specific fMRI activation. The patient developed a marked reading deficit, while recognition of other visual categories remained intact. Furthermore, in the post-surgery fMRI map of visual cortex, only word-specific activations disappeared. Altogether, these results provide direct evidence for the causal role of the left occipitotemporal cortex in the recognition of visual words.
“视觉词形系统”模型假定，左枕颞区实现了高效阅读所需的自动视觉单词识别。该理论在一名患者身上进行了评估，通过行为测量、功能磁共振成像（fMRI）和颅内局部场电位对其阅读能力进行了探究。在手术前，患者阅读功能正常时，fMRI显示出对单词、面孔、房屋和工具的腹侧视觉选择性呈现出正常的分布模式。颅内记录表明，左枕颞叶皮质对有意识呈现的单词以及阈下单词均有短潜伏期反应。手术切除了一小部分与单词特异性fMRI激活区域重叠的对单词有反应的枕颞叶皮质。患者出现了明显的阅读缺陷，而对其他视觉类别的识别仍保持完好。此外，在术后视觉皮质的fMRI图谱中，只有单词特异性激活消失了。总之，这些结果为左枕颞叶皮质在视觉单词识别中的因果作用提供了直接证据。
