Abstract
Whether reading in different writing systems recruits language-unique or language-universal neural processes is a long-standing debate. Many studies have shown the left arcuate fasciculus (AF) to be involved in phonological and reading processes. In contrast, little is known about the role of the right AF in reading, but some have suggested that it may play a role in visual spatial aspects of reading or the prosodic components of language. The right AF may be more important for reading in Chinese due to its logographic and tonal properties, but this hypothesis has yet to be tested. We recruited a group of Chinese-English bilingual children (8.2 to 12.0 years old) to explore the common and unique relation of reading skill in English and Chinese to fractional anisotropy (FA) in the bilateral AF. We found that both English and Chinese reading skills were positively correlated with FA in the rostral part of the left AF-direct segment. Additionally, English reading skill was positively correlated with FA in the caudal part of the left AF-direct segment, which was also positively correlated with phonological awareness. In contrast, Chinese reading skill was positively correlated with FA in certain segments of the right AF, which was positively correlated with visual spatial ability, but not tone discrimination ability. Our results suggest that there are language universal substrates of reading across languages, but that certain left AF nodes support phonological mechanisms important for reading in English, whereas certain right AF nodes support visual spatial mechanisms important for reading in Chinese.
Highlights
There is a long-standing debate about reading across different writing systems, that is, whether reading recruits unique neural resources, constrained by culture (Paulesu et al, 2000; Siok et al, 2004, 2009; M. Zhang, Chen, et al, 2014), or whether reading involves universal neural processes, independent of language (Frost, 2012; Rueckl et al, 2015)
We found that along the left direct segment arcuate fasciculus (AF), near the temporoparietal area, fractional anisotropy (FA) values from node 37 to node 45 were associated with reading skill in both Chinese and English partialling for age and sex. (These results passed the lenient threshold for adjacent nodes ≥9 at p < 0.05 uncorrected, but neither English nor Chinese results survived the stringent threshold of family-wise error (FWE) cluster size correction for adjacent nodes ≥16, p < 0.05; Figure 1.) These nodes were not correlated with phonological awareness, visual spatial ability, or Chinese tone discrimination ability
Along the direct segment of the left AF, we found that near the superior temporal cortex, FA values from node 80 to node 95 were significantly correlated with English reading skill when Chinese reading skill, sex, and age were partialled out
Summary
There is a long-standing debate about reading across different writing systems, that is, whether reading recruits unique neural resources, constrained by culture (Paulesu et al, 2000; Siok et al, 2004, 2009; M. Zhang, Chen, et al, 2014), or whether reading involves universal neural processes, independent of language (Frost, 2012; Rueckl et al, 2015). There is a long-standing debate about reading across different writing systems, that is, whether reading recruits unique neural resources, constrained by culture Zhang, Chen, et al, 2014), or whether reading involves universal neural processes, independent of language (Frost, 2012; Rueckl et al, 2015). Left versus right AF contributions to reading across languages. Alphabetic language: A type of language that uses letters or a combination of letters to represent speech sound directly. Phonological awareness: A measurable awareness to detect and manipulate each unit of sounds. Logographic language: A type of language that uses characters to represent words, mapping onto phonology at syllable level. White matter: A type of neural tissue of the brain that is made up mainly of myelinated axons, called tracts or fibers
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