Helps adults study the influence of literacy on the brain

2009/11/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Ikerketa-zentroak
• Giza zientziak

The research team is led by Manuel Carreiras, of the BCBL of Donostia

A team of researchers led by Manuel Carreiras, scientific director of the Basque Center on Cognition Brain and Language in Donostia, has investigated how the structure of our brain changes as we learn to read. British and Colombian researchers have also participated in this research. This research has been published in the journal Nature.

Understanding how the brain changes as we learn to read is a difficult task. Most of us learn to read when we are children, as we learn other skills or abilities. "Therefore, it is almost impossible to separate the changes that occur in the brain in childhood due to the teaching of reading the changes that produce other skills or skills," explains Carreiras. "In the adult brain, however, not all these changes occur."

Images of cerebral MRI of twenty former literate guerrillas in adulthood have been taken and compared to twenty others without literacy.

And they have seen that grey matter (processing zone) is denser in several areas of the left hemisphere among those who have learned to read. As expected, these spaces are responsible for the knowledge of letters, the translation of letters into the corresponding sounds and the meaning of words. Reading also increases the density of white matter that produces brain connections.

This study has also found connections that are born and directed from the brain area known as angular circumvolution. Although scientists have known for 150 years that this is an important reading space, this research has shown that the importance of angular circumvolution in this process has not been properly understood.

It was previously thought that the angular circumvolution had the responsibility to know the forms of words before resorting to the sounds and meaning of words. Today, researchers have seen that the angular circumvolution does not directly translate words to sounds and meanings, but participates in the reading process, recognizing the meaning of the word anticipating letters.

"It is a very important discovery. In fact, we have been able to determine the role of the angular circumvolution in the reading process. On the other hand, we have also explained the differences between the brain of people with dyslexia and the brain of people who do not," says Carreiras.