title: Brain activation during sentence comprehension among good and poor readers.
abstract: This study sought to increase current understanding of the neuropsychological basis of poor reading ability by using fMRI to examine brain activation during a visual sentence comprehension task among good and poor readers in the third (n = 32) and fifth (n = 35) grades. Reading ability, age, and the combination of both factors made unique contributions to cortical activation. The main finding was of parietotemporal underactivation (less activation than controls) among poor readers at the 2 grade levels. A positive linear relationship (spanning both the poor and good readers) was found between reading ability and activation in the left posterior middle temporal and postcentral gyri and in the right inferior parietal lobule such that activation increased with reading ability. Different developmental trajectories characterized good and poor readers in the left angular gyrus: activation increased with age among good readers, a change that failed to occur among poor readers. The parietotemporal cortex is discussed in terms of its role in reading acquisition, with the left angular gyrus playing a key role. It is proposed that the functioning of the cortical network underlying reading is dependent on a combination of interacting factors, including physiological maturation, neural integrity, skill level, and the nature of the task.
authors.affiliation: Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging, Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA. meyler@andrew.cmu.edu
authors.forename: Ann
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Meyler
authors.forename: Timothy A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Keller
authors.forename: Vladimir L
authors.initials: VL
authors.lastname: Cherkassky
authors.forename: Donghoon
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Fumiko
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Hoeft
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Whitfield-Gabrieli
authors.forename: John D E
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Gabrieli
authors.forename: Marcel Adam
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Just
mesh_terms: D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D002648:Child; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology*; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D011932:Reading; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis