The Haskins pediatric atlas: a magnetic-resonance-imaging-based pediatric template and atlas.

Background: Spatial normalization plays an essential role in multi-subject MRI and functional MRI (fMRI) experiments by facilitating a common space in which group analyses are performed. Although many prominent adult templates are available, their use for pediatric data is problematic. Generalized templates for pediatric populations are limited or constructed using older methods that result in less ideal normalization.

The brain signature of emerging reading in two contrasting languages.

Despite dissimilarities among scripts, a universal hallmark of literacy in skilled readers is the convergent brain activity for print and speech. Little is known, however, whether this differs as a function of grapheme to phoneme transparency in beginning readers. Here we compare speech and orthographic processing circuits in two contrasting languages, Polish and English, in 100 7-year-old children performing fMRI language localizer tasks.

Thalamus is a common locus of reading, arithmetic, and IQ: Analysis of local intrinsic functional properties.

Neuroimaging studies of basic achievement skills - reading and arithmetic - often control for the effect of IQ to identify unique neural correlates of each skill. This may underestimate possible effects of common factors between achievement and IQ measures on neuroimaging results. Here, we simultaneously examined achievement (reading and arithmetic) and IQ measures in young adults, aiming to identify MRI correlates of their common factors.

Individual differences in subphonemic sensitivity and phonological skills.

Many studies have established a link between phonological abilities (indexed by phonological awareness and phonological memory tasks) and typical and atypical reading development. Individuals who perform poorly on phonological assessments have been mostly assumed to have (or "fuzzy") phonological representations, with typical phonemic categories, but with greater category overlap due to imprecise encoding. An alternative posits that poor readers have phonological representations, with speech sounds perceived allophonically (phonetically distinct variants of a single phonemic category).

Examining individual differences in reading and attentional control networks utilizing an oddball fMRI task.

The aim of the current study was to develop an fMRI task capable of characterizing individual differences in reading and attentional domains. Forty-nine students with a range of reading and attentional control abilities completed an event-related fMRI oddball task consisting of printed word and false font stimuli. Reading network activation was assessed by contrasting printed words with false font stimuli.

Common neural basis of motor sequence learning and word recognition and its relation with individual differences in reading skill.

To investigate the neural basis of a common statistical learning mechanism involved in motor sequence learning and decoding, we recorded same participants' brain activation in a serial reaction time (SRT) and word reading task using functional magnetic resonance imaging. In the SRT, a manual response was made depending on the location of a visual cue, and the order of the locations was either fixed or random. In the word reading task, visual words were passively presented.

Neurobiological signatures of L2 proficiency: Evidence from a bi-directional cross-linguistic study.

Recent evidence has shown that convergence of print and speech processing across a network of primarily left-hemisphere regions of the brain is a predictor of future reading skills in children, and a marker of fluent reading ability in adults. The present study extends these findings into the domain of second-language (L2) literacy, through brain imaging data of English and Hebrew L2 learners. Participants received an fMRI brain scan, while performing a semantic judgement task on spoken and written words and pseudowords in both their L1 and L2, alongside a battery of L1 and L2 behavioural measures.

Individual differences in decoding skill, print exposure, and cortical structure in young adults.

This exploratory study investigated relations between individual differences in cortical grey matter structure and young adult readers' cognitive profiles. Whole-brain analyses revealed neuroanatomical correlations with word and nonword reading ability (decoding), and experience with printed matter. Decoding was positively correlated with grey matter volume (GMV) in left superior temporal sulcus, and thickness (GMT) in right superior temporal gyrus.

Cortical regions supporting reading comprehension skill for single words and discourse.

A substantial amount of variation in reading comprehension skill is explained by listening comprehension skill, suggesting tight links between printed and spoken discourse processing. In addition, both word level (e.g.

Individual Differences in Reading Skill Are Related to Trial-by-Trial Neural Activation Variability in the Reading Network.

Recent work has suggested that variability in levels of neural activation may be related to behavioral and cognitive performance across a number of domains and may offer information that is not captured by more traditional measures that use the average level of brain activation. We examined the relationship between reading skill in school-aged children and neural activation variability during a functional MRI reading task after taking into account average levels of activity. The reading task involved matching printed and spoken words to pictures of items.

Neural representations for newly learned words are modulated by overnight consolidation, reading skill, and age.

Word learning depends not only on efficient online binding of phonological, orthographic and lexical information, but also on consolidation of new word representations into permanent lexical memory. Work on word learning under a variety of contexts indicates that reading and language skill impact facility of word learning in both print and speech. In addition, recent research finds that individuals with language impairments show deficits in both initial word form learning and in maintaining newly learned representations over time, implicating mechanisms associated with maintenance that may be driven by deficits in overnight consolidation.

Prereader to beginning reader: changes induced by reading acquisition in print and speech brain networks.

Background: Literacy acquisition is a demanding process that induces significant changes in the brain, especially in the spoken and written language networks. Nevertheless, large-scale paediatric fMRI studies are still limited.

Methods: We analyzed fMRI data to show how individual differences in reading performance correlate with brain activation for speech and print in 111 children attending kindergarten or first grade and examined group differences between a matched subset of emergent-readers and prereaders.

The BDNF ValMet polymorphism is associated with structural neuroanatomical differences in young children.

The brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) ValMet single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) has been associated with individual differences in brain structure and function, and cognition. Research on BDNF's influence on brain and cognition has largely been limited to adults, and little is known about the association of this gene, and specifically the ValMet polymorphism, with developing brain structure and emerging cognitive functions in children. We performed a targeted genetic association analysis on cortical thickness, surface area, and subcortical volume in 78 children (ages 6-10) who were Val homozygotes (homozygous Val/Val carriers) or Met carriers (Val/Met, Met/Met) for the ValMet locus using Atlas-based brain segmentation.

Dough, tough, cough, rough: A "fast" fMRI localizer of component processes in reading.

In the current study, we present a novel fMRI protocol in which words, pseudowords, and other word-like stimuli are passively presented in a rapid, sequential fashion. In this "fast" localizer paradigm, items are presented in groups of four; within sets, words are related in orthographic, phonological, and/or semantic properties. We tested this protocol with a group of skilled adult readers (N=18).

The real-time prediction and inhibition of linguistic outcomes: Effects of language and literacy skill.

Recent studies have found considerable individual variation in language comprehenders' predictive behaviors, as revealed by their anticipatory eye movements during language comprehension. The current study investigated the relationship between these predictive behaviors and the language and literacy skills of a diverse, community-based sample of young adults. We found that rapid automatized naming (RAN) was a key determinant of comprehenders' prediction ability (e.

The BDNF Val66Met Polymorphism Influences Reading Ability and Patterns of Neural Activation in Children.

Understanding how genes impact the brain's functional activation for learning and cognition during development remains limited. We asked whether a common genetic variant in the BDNF gene (the Val66Met polymorphism) modulates neural activation in the young brain during a critical period for the emergence and maturation of the neural circuitry for reading. In animal models, the bdnf variation has been shown to be associated with the structure and function of the developing brain and in humans it has been associated with multiple aspects of cognition, particularly memory, which are relevant for the development of skilled reading.

Relationships Between Impulsivity, Anxiety, and Risk-Taking and the Neural Correlates of Attention in Adolescents.

Although impulsivity, anxiety, and risk-taking may relate to attentional processes, little research has directly investigated how each may be associated with specific facets of attentional processes and their underlying neural correlates. Nineteen adolescents performed a functional magnetic resonance imaging task involving simple, selective, and divided attention. Out-of-scanner-assessed impulsivity, anxiety, and risk-taking scores were not correlated with each other and showed task-phase-specific patterns of association.

Vocabulary does not complicate the simple view of reading.

Gough and Tunmer's (1986) simple view of reading (SVR) proposed that reading comprehension (RC) is a function of language comprehension (LC) and word recognition/decoding. Braze et al. (2007) presented data suggesting an extension of the SVR in which knowledge of vocabulary (V) affected RC over and above the effects of LC.

Universal brain signature of proficient reading: Evidence from four contrasting languages.

We propose and test a theoretical perspective in which a universal hallmark of successful literacy acquisition is the convergence of the speech and orthographic processing systems onto a common network of neural structures, regardless of how spoken words are represented orthographically in a writing system. During functional MRI, skilled adult readers of four distinct and highly contrasting languages, Spanish, English, Hebrew, and Chinese, performed an identical semantic categorization task to spoken and written words. Results from three complementary analytic approaches demonstrate limited language variation, with speech-print convergence emerging as a common brain signature of reading proficiency across the wide spectrum of selected languages, whether their writing system is alphabetic or logographic, whether it is opaque or transparent, and regardless of the phonological and morphological structure it represents.

Print-Speech Convergence Predicts Future Reading Outcomes in Early Readers.

Becoming a skilled reader requires building a functional neurocircuitry for printed-language processing that integrates with spoken-language-processing networks. In this longitudinal study, functional MRI (fMRI) was used to examine convergent activation for printed and spoken language (print-speech coactivation) in selected regions implicated in printed-language processing (the reading network). We found that print-speech coactivation across the left-hemisphere reading network in beginning readers predicted reading achievement 2 years later beyond the effects of brain activity for either modality alone; moreover, coactivation effects accounted for variance in later reading after controlling for initial reading performance.

Functionally integrated neural processing of linguistic and talker information: An event-related fMRI and ERP study.

Speech signals contain information of both linguistic content and a talker's voice. Conventionally, linguistic and talker processing are thought to be mediated by distinct neural systems in the left and right hemispheres respectively, but there is growing evidence that linguistic and talker processing interact in many ways. Previous studies suggest that talker-related vocal tract changes are processed integrally with phonetic changes in the bilateral posterior superior temporal gyrus/superior temporal sulcus (STG/STS), because the vocal tract parameter influences the perception of phonetic information.

Language differences in the brain network for reading in naturalistic story reading and lexical decision.

Differences in how writing systems represent language raise important questions about whether there could be a universal functional architecture for reading across languages. In order to study potential language differences in the neural networks that support reading skill, we collected fMRI data from readers of alphabetic (English) and morpho-syllabic (Chinese) writing systems during two reading tasks. In one, participants read short stories under conditions that approximate natural reading, and in the other, participants decided whether individual stimuli were real words or not.

Neural correlates of language and non-language visuospatial processing in adolescents with reading disability.

Despite anecdotal evidence of relative visuospatial processing strengths in individuals with reading disability (RD), only a few studies have assessed the presence or the extent of these putative strengths. The current study examined the cognitive and neural bases of visuospatial processing abilities in adolescents with RD relative to typically developing (TD) peers. Using both cognitive tasks and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) we contrasted printed word recognition with non-language visuospatial processing tasks.

Glutamate and choline levels predict individual differences in reading ability in emergent readers.

Reading disability is a brain-based difficulty in acquiring fluent reading skills that affects significant numbers of children. Although neuroanatomical and neurofunctional networks involved in typical and atypical reading are increasingly well characterized, the underlying neurochemical bases of individual differences in reading development are virtually unknown. The current study is the first to examine neurochemistry in children during the critical period in which the neurocircuits that support skilled reading are still developing.