Brain activity associated with a nouns-reading task
Main Article Content
Keywords
Reading, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Neuropsychology, Brain
Abstract
Background: word reading involves several steps, from the visual perception of each of its constituting elements to its recognition as an entity with a specific meaning. Various brain structures participate in these processes, depending of the linguistic and cognitive characteristics of the stimulus. Our objective was to characterize brain activity through the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) associated with the process of nouns reading.
Methods: eleven healthy right-handed volunteers participated in a lexical decision task involving 58 written nouns. An equal number of letter sequences were used as control stimuli. Reaction times were also recorded.
Results: there was a difference (p < 0.05) in reaction time between nouns and letter sequences in the lexical decision task. FMRI contrasted between conditions revealed significant activations in several areas involved in reading.
Conclusions: the brain activation may reflect the different perceptual demands associated with the initial processing of nouns, as compared to meaningless letter sequences. We attribute the difference between our results and those previously reported to the particular characteristics of the pronunciation rules of written Spanish.
References
Reigosa C. Preguntando al cerebro del niño mal lector. En: Matute E, coordinadora. Cerebro y lectura. Guadalajara, Jalisco, México: Universidad de Guadalajara; 2003 p. 81-102.
Ardilla A. Características de las alexias y las agrafias en español. En: Matute E, Leal F, coodinadores. Introducción al estudio del español desde una perspectiva multidisciplinaria. México: Universidad de Guadalajara; 2003. p. 343-362.
Reigosa C. Pérez MC, Manzano M, Antelo JM. Sistema automatizado para explorar la lectura en escolares de habla hispana. Rev Pensamiento Leng 1993-1994; 2(1):141-159.
Cuetos-Vega F. Las alexias. En: Peña-Casanova J, editor. Neurología de la conducta y neuropsicología. México: Médica Panamericana; 2007. p. 109-124.
Hutted S, Song AW, McCarthy G. Functional MRI. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer; 2004.
Jezzard P, Matthews PM, Smith S. Functional MRI, an introduction to methods. UK: Oxford Medical Publications; 2001
Ostrosky-Solís F, Marcos-Ortega J, Ardila A, Roselli M, Palacios S. Syntactic comprehension in Broca’s aphasic Spanish-speakers: null effects of word order. Aphasiology 1999;13(7):553-571.
Ruiz A, Ansaldo AI, Lecours AR. Two cases of deep dyslexia in unilingual Hispanophones aphasics. Brain Lang 1994;46(2):245-256.
Villa MA. Versión Mexicana del test Barcelona abreviado. Perfiles normales [tesis de maestría en Neuropsicología], Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, España, 1999.
Alva-Canto EA, Pérez-González B, Mazón-Parra NC, Arias-Trejo N, Álvarez-Mejía AY, et al. Cómo usan los niños las palabras. El uso de los derivados de las palabras en el lenguaje espontáneo de los niños en interacción libre entre iguales. México: Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; 2001.
Psychology Sofwares Tools. E-Prime 2.0 Professional. Disponible en http://www.pst net.com
Friston K. SPM2. London: University College London. Disponible en http://www.fili on.ucl.ac.uk/spm/
The MathWorks. MATLAB 6.5. Student Version. Disponible en http://www.mathworks.com
Paquete Estadístico para las Ciencias Sociales (SPSS versión 15). Chicago, US; 2006
Talairach J, Tournoux P. Co-planar stereotaxic atlas of the human brain. 3-dimensional proportional system: an approach to cerebral imaging. US: Thieme; 1998.
Cohen L, Dehaeneb S. Specialization within the ventral stream: the case for visual word form area. Neuroimage 2004;22(1):466-476.
Price C, Devlin JT. The myth of the Visual word form area. Neuroimage 2003;19(3):473-481.
Macaluso E, Frith CD, Driver J. Delay activity and sensory-motor translation during planned eye or hand movements to visual or tactile targets. J Neu- rophysiol 2007;98(5):3081-3094.
Zhuangwei X, Zhang JZ, Wang X, Wu R, Hu X, Weng X. Differential activity in left inferior frontal gyrus for pseudo words and real words: an event-related fMRI study on auditory lexical decision. Human Brain Mapp 2005; 25(2):212-221.
Strand F, Forssberg H, Klingberg T, Norrelgen F. Phonological working memory with auditory presentation of pseudo words. An event related fMRI study. Brain Res 2008:30(1212):48-54.
Fiebach CJ, Friederici AD, et al. fMRI evidence for dual routes to the mental lexicon in visual word recognition. J Congn Neurosci 2002; 14(1):11-23.