Hi everyone,
Our next Cognitive Workshop of the quarter will be at 12:00 PM on Thursday, May 22, in Beecher 101. Margaret Gullick (Northwestern University) will be presenting her talk, “Individual differences in reading-related crossmodal processing and reading outcomes are predicted by arcuate fasciculus coherence”
Abstract:
Use of crossmodal information, such as integrated letter-sound (i.e., phoneme-grapheme) representations, is critical for successful reading and is one of the strongest early predictors of future reading achievement. Previous work has shown that white matter coherence and connectivity along the arcuate fasciculus is strongly tied to reading ability, with higher coherence associated with better performance, but the relationships between arcuate coherence and crossmodal versus unimodal reading processing, or longitudinal reading growth and early arcuate strength, have not been examined. We here first investigated the relationship between reading-related crossmodal brain activity in the posterior superior temporal sulcus and arcuate coherence in a group of 47 children with a range of reading abilities. Coherence along the left arcuate was significantly related to activity for crossmodal word rhyme judgments, but not unimodal task activities. This finding thus specifically links arcuate coherence to reading-related crossmodal processing, supporting the hypothesis that it especially supports the phoneme-grapheme translations needed in reading. Then, we used probabilistic tractography to reconstruct the arcuate and to separate it into anterior (fronto-parietal) and direct (temporo-frontal) component subsections. Regression analyses with longitudinal data collected three years after the initial visit from a subset of children demonstrated that initial connectivity especially along the direct section, was predictive of reading outcome. Further, this early direct arcuate connectivity was the only significant predictor of the change in reading score across the testing interval, even in comparison to the predictive power of behavioral measures. This result indicates that it is especially the direct segment of the arcuate which impacts reading. Together, these studies demonstrate the importance of the arcuate for reading-related processing both initially and longitudinally and help to better define its role in the neural reading network.
Food and drink will be provided.