Gao Yue, Meng Xiangzhi, Bai Zilin, Liu Xin, Zhang Manli, Li Hehui, Ding Guosheng, Liu Li, Booth James R
State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, and IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavioral and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, China.
Neurobiol Lang (Camb). 2022 Feb 10;3(1):109-131. doi: 10.1162/nol_a_00051. eCollection 2022.
Whether reading in different writing systems recruits language-unique or language-universal neural processes is a long-standing debate. Many studies have shown the left arcuate fasciculus (AF) to be involved in phonological and reading processes. In contrast, little is known about the role of the right AF in reading, but some have suggested that it may play a role in visual spatial aspects of reading or the prosodic components of language. The right AF may be more important for reading in Chinese due to its logographic and tonal properties, but this hypothesis has yet to be tested. We recruited a group of Chinese-English bilingual children (8.2 to 12.0 years old) to explore the common and unique relation of reading skill in English and Chinese to fractional anisotropy (FA) in the bilateral AF. We found that both English and Chinese reading skills were positively correlated with FA in the rostral part of the left AF-direct segment. Additionally, English reading skill was positively correlated with FA in the caudal part of the left AF-direct segment, which was also positively correlated with phonological awareness. In contrast, Chinese reading skill was positively correlated with FA in certain segments of the right AF, which was positively correlated with visual spatial ability, but not tone discrimination ability. Our results suggest that there are language universal substrates of reading across languages, but that certain left AF nodes support phonological mechanisms important for reading in English, whereas certain right AF nodes support visual spatial mechanisms important for reading in Chinese.
阅读不同书写系统时所调用的是语言特有的还是语言通用的神经过程，这是一个长期存在的争论。许多研究表明，左侧弓状束（AF）参与语音和阅读过程。相比之下，右侧AF在阅读中的作用却鲜为人知，但有人认为它可能在阅读的视觉空间方面或语言的韵律成分中发挥作用。由于中文具有表意和声调特性，右侧AF对中文阅读可能更为重要，但这一假设尚未得到验证。我们招募了一组中英双语儿童（8.2至12.0岁），以探究英语和中文阅读技能与双侧AF各向异性分数（FA）之间的共同和独特关系。我们发现，英语和中文阅读技能均与左侧AF直接段头部的FA呈正相关。此外，英语阅读技能与左侧AF直接段尾部的FA呈正相关，该部位也与语音意识呈正相关。相比之下，中文阅读技能与右侧AF某些节段的FA呈正相关，该部位与视觉空间能力呈正相关，但与声调辨别能力无关。我们的研究结果表明，不同语言间存在阅读通用的神经基础，但左侧AF的某些节点支持对英语阅读重要的语音机制，而右侧AF的某些节点支持对中文阅读重要的视觉空间机制。
