National Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
J Neurosci. 2013 Jul 31;33(31):12835-43. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0449-13.2013.
As a relatively recent cultural invention in human evolution, reading is an important gateway to personal development and socioeconomic success. Despite the well documented individual differences in reading ability, its neuroanatomical correlates have not been well understood, largely due to the fact that reading is a complex skill that consists of multiple components. Using a large sample of 416 college students and 7 reading tasks, the present study successfully identified three uncorrelated components of reading ability: phonological decoding, form-sound association, and naming speed. We then tried to predict individuals' scores in these components from their gray matter volume (GMV) on a subset of participants (N = 253) with high-quality structural images, adopting a multivariate support vector regression analysis with tenfold cross-validation. Our results revealed distinct neural regions that supported different aspects of reading ability: whereas phonological decoding was associated with the GMV in the left superior parietal lobe extending to the supramarginal gyrus, form-sound association was predicted by the GMV in the hippocampus and cerebellum. Naming speed was associated with GMV in distributed brain regions in the occipital, temporal, parietal, and frontal cortices. Phonological decoding and form-sound association were uncorrelated with general cognitive abilities. However, naming speed was correlated with intelligence and processing speed, and some of the regions that were predictive of naming speed also predicted these general cognitive abilities. These results provide further insights on the cognitive and neural architecture of reading and the structural basis of individual differences in reading abilities.
作为人类进化过程中的一个相对较新的文化发明，阅读是个人发展和社会经济成功的重要途径。尽管阅读能力存在个体差异已经得到了充分的证明，但阅读的神经解剖学相关性尚未得到很好的理解，这主要是因为阅读是一种复杂的技能，它由多个组成部分组成。本研究使用了一个包含 416 名大学生和 7 项阅读任务的大型样本，成功地识别出了阅读能力的三个不相关的组成部分：语音解码、形音联想和命名速度。然后，我们尝试在一组具有高质量结构图像的参与者（N = 253）中，从他们的灰质体积（GMV）预测这些组成部分的个体得分，采用了具有 10 倍交叉验证的多元支持向量回归分析。我们的结果揭示了支持阅读能力不同方面的不同神经区域：语音解码与左侧顶叶上延伸到缘上回的 GMV 相关，形音联想由海马体和小脑的 GMV 预测。命名速度与枕叶、颞叶、顶叶和额叶皮质中分布的脑区的 GMV 相关。语音解码和形音联想与一般认知能力无关。然而，命名速度与智力和处理速度相关，一些预测命名速度的区域也预测了这些一般认知能力。这些结果为阅读的认知和神经结构以及阅读能力个体差异的结构基础提供了进一步的见解。
