title: Congenital unilateral deafness affects cerebral organization of reading.
abstract: It is known that early sensory deprivation modifies brain functional structure and connectivity. The aim of the present study was to investigate the neuro-functional organization of reading in a patient with profound congenital unilateral deafness. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), we compared cortical networks supporting the processing of written words in patient RA (completely deaf in the right ear since birth) and in a group of control volunteers. We found that congenital unilateral hearing deprivation modifies neural mechanisms of word reading. Indeed, while written word processing was left-lateralized in controls, we found a strong right lateralization of the fusiform and inferior occipital gyri activation in RA. This finding goes in the same direction of recent proposals that the ventral occipito-temporal activity in word reading seem to lateralize to the same hemisphere as the one involved in spoken language processing.
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo 1, Milan 20126, Italy. roberta.adorni1@unimib.it.
authors: Roberta
authors: R
authors: Adorni
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo 1, Milan 20126, Italy. mirella.manfredi@unimib.it.
authors: Mirella
authors: M
authors: Manfredi
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo 1, Milan 20126, Italy. mado.proverbio@unimib.it.
authors: Alice Mado
authors: AM
authors: Proverbio