Center for the Study of Learning, Department of Pediatrics, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2022 Oct 1;43(14):4310-4325. doi: 10.1002/hbm.25955. Epub 2022 May 24.
Skilled reading is important in daily life. While the understanding of the neurofunctional organization of this uniquely human skill has advanced significantly, it does not take into consideration the common bilingual experiences around the world. To examine the role of early bilingualism on the neural substrates supporting English word processing, we compared brain activity, as well as functional connectivity, in Spanish-English early bilingual adults (N = 25) and English monolingual adults (N = 33) during single-word processing. Activation analysis revealed no significant differences between the two groups. A seed-to-voxel analysis using eight a priori selected seed-regions (placed in regions known to be involved in reading) revealed relatively stronger functional connectivity in bilinguals between two sets of regions: left superior temporal gyrus seed positively with left lingual gyrus and left middle frontal gyrus seed negatively with left anterior cingulate cortex. Together these results suggest that an early Spanish-English bilingual experience does not modulate local brain activity for English word reading. It does, however, have some influence on the functional intercommunication between brain regions during reading, specifically in two regions associated with reading, which are functionally connected to those inside and outside of the reading network. We conclude that brain regions involved in processing English words are not that different in Spanish-English early bilingual adults relative to monolingual adult users of English.
熟练阅读在日常生活中很重要。尽管人们对这一独特人类技能的神经功能组织有了显著的了解，但它并没有考虑到世界各地常见的双语经验。为了研究早期双语经验对支持英语单词处理的神经基质的作用，我们比较了西班牙语-英语早期双语成年人（N=25）和英语单语成年人（N=33）在单个单词处理过程中的大脑活动和功能连接。激活分析显示两组之间没有显著差异。使用八个预先选择的种子区域（放置在已知与阅读相关的区域）进行的种子到体素分析显示，双语者之间存在相对更强的功能连接：左侧颞上回种子与左侧舌回之间呈正相关，左侧额中回种子与左侧前扣带皮质之间呈负相关。这些结果表明，早期的西班牙语-英语双语经验不会调节英语单词阅读的局部大脑活动。然而，它确实对阅读过程中大脑区域之间的功能相互交流有一些影响，特别是在与阅读相关的两个区域，它们与阅读网络内部和外部的区域在功能上相连。我们的结论是，相对于英语单语使用者，西班牙语-英语早期双语成年人在处理英语单词时，大脑区域并没有那么不同。
