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Individual Differences in Reading Skill Are Related to Trial-by-Trial Neural Activation Variability in the Reading Network
- Source :
- The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, vol 38, iss 12, Malins, JG; Pugh, KR; Buis, B; Frost, SJ; Hoeft, F; Landi, N; et al.(2018). Individual Differences in Reading Skill Are Related to Trial-by-Trial Neural Activation Variability in the Reading Network. JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE, 38(12), 2981-2989. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0907-17.2018. UCSF: Retrieved from: http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/2nw8t12q
- Publication Year :
- 2018
- Publisher :
- eScholarship, University of California, 2018.
-
Abstract
- 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. Single trial activation estimates were used to calculate the mean and standard deviation of children's responses to print and speech stimuli; multiple regression analyses evaluated the relationship between reading skill and trial-by-trial activation variability. The reliability of observed findings from the discovery sample (n = 44; ages 8-11; 18 female) was then confirmed in an independent sample of children (n = 32; ages 8-11; 14 female). Across the two samples, reading skill was positively related to trial-by-trial variability in the activation response to print in the left inferior frontal gyrus pars triangularis. This relationship held even when accounting for mean levels of activation. This finding suggests that intrasubject variability in trial-by-trial fMRI activation responses to printed words accounts for individual differences in human reading ability that are not fully captured by traditional mean levels of brain activity. Furthermore, this positive relationship between trial-by-trial activation variability and reading skill may provide evidence that neural variability plays a beneficial role during early reading development.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Recent work has suggested that neural activation variability, or moment-to-moment changes in the engagement of brain regions, is related to individual differences in behavioral and cognitive performance across multiple domains. However, differences in neural activation variability have not yet been evaluated in relation to reading skill. In the current study, we analyzed data from two independent groups of children who performed an fMRI task involving reading and listening to words. Across both samples, reading skill was positively related to trial-by-trial variability in activation to print stimuli in the left inferior frontal gyrus pars triangularis, even when accounting for the more conventional measure of mean levels of brain activity. This finding suggests that neural variability could be beneficial in developing readers.
- Subjects :
- Male
1.2 Psychological and socioeconomic processes
Individuality
Basic Behavioral and Social Science
Medical and Health Sciences
Clinical Research
Underpinning research
Behavioral and Social Science
Humans
Child
individual differences
Pediatric
Brain Mapping
Neurology & Neurosurgery
beta series
reading disability
Psychology and Cognitive Sciences
Neurosciences
event-related fMRI
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Broca Area
BOLD variability
Reading
Neurological
Female
Mental health
trial-by-trial variability
Comprehension
β series
Subjects
Details
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, vol 38, iss 12, Malins, JG; Pugh, KR; Buis, B; Frost, SJ; Hoeft, F; Landi, N; et al.(2018). Individual Differences in Reading Skill Are Related to Trial-by-Trial Neural Activation Variability in the Reading Network. JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE, 38(12), 2981-2989. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0907-17.2018. UCSF: Retrieved from: http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/2nw8t12q
- Accession number :
- edsair.dedup.wf.001..75a092c9879a0c901d8545131dbf97a3