Imaging the reading brain in children and adults

There is no one “reading region” of the brain. Instead, we read words by coordinating multiple regions of the brain that are specialized for letter recognition, speech processing and semantic knowledge, along with vision and attention. My lab’s research has been studying the inner workings of this reading network using a range of behavioural and neuroimaging techniques, across a range of populations. My talk will discuss a few of our recent findings in which we are using eyetracking and ERPs to examine the time course of reading, especially as it relates to recognizing the phonological forms of visual words. These studies provide a novel window into how children and adults decode written words, and how this might differ in children with reading disorders. We are also using fMRI and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to localize sub-regions of the brain’s reading network, both in skilled readers as well as in a patient with pure alexia.