Faculty of Education in Science and Technology, Educational Neuroimaging Center, Technion, Israel.
Division of General and Community Pediatrics, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA.
Acta Paediatr. 2018 Apr;107(4):685-693. doi: 10.1111/apa.14176. Epub 2017 Dec 27.
This study compared the time spent using screen-based media or reading on the functional connectivity of the reading-related brain regions in children aged 8-12.
We recruited 19 healthy American children from a private school in Cincinnati, USA, in 2015-6 after advertising the study to parents. The parents completed surveys on how many hours their children spent on independent reading and screen-based media time, including smartphones, tablets, desktop or laptop computers and television. The children underwent magnetic resonance imaging that assessed their resting-state connectivity between the left visual word form area, as the seed area, and other brain regions, with screen time and reading time applied as predictors.
Time spent reading was positively correlated with higher functional connectivity between the seed area and left-sided language, visual and cognitive control regions. In contrast, screen time was related to lower connectivity between the seed area and regions related to language and cognitive control.
Screen time and time spent reading showed different effects on functional connectivity between the visual word form area and language, visual and cognitive control regions of the brain. These findings underscore the importance of children reading to support healthy brain development and literacy and limiting screen time.
本研究比较了 8-12 岁儿童使用屏幕媒体或阅读时，与阅读相关的大脑区域的功能连接情况。
我们于 2015-6 年在美国辛辛那提的一所私立学校招募了 19 名健康的美国儿童，在向家长宣传该研究后。父母完成了关于孩子独立阅读和屏幕媒体时间（包括智能手机、平板电脑、台式或笔记本电脑和电视）的调查。这些孩子接受了磁共振成像检查，评估了他们静息状态下种子区域（左视觉词形区）与其他大脑区域之间的连接情况，将屏幕时间和阅读时间作为预测因子。
阅读时间与种子区域和左侧语言、视觉和认知控制区域之间更高的功能连接呈正相关。相比之下，屏幕时间与种子区域与语言和认知控制区域相关的连接降低有关。
屏幕时间和阅读时间对视觉词形区与大脑语言、视觉和认知控制区域之间的功能连接有不同的影响。这些发现强调了儿童阅读对支持健康大脑发育和读写能力的重要性，并限制了屏幕时间。
