Are you good at reading? Your Brain Can Be Structured Differently

THIS IS AN ARTICLE reprinted from Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

The number of people who read for fun is steadily decreasing. 50 per cent of UK adults say they don’t read regularly (up from 42 per cent in 2015) and one in four 16-24 year olds say they never do. Research by The Reading Agency.

But what are the consequences? Will people’s preference for video over text affect our brains or our evolution as a species? What brain structure do good readers really have? my new researchpublished in NeuroImage, found.

I analyzed open-source data from more than 1,000 participants to discover that readers of different abilities have different characteristics in their brain anatomy.

The structure of two regions in the left hemisphere crucial for language was different in people who read well.

One was the anterior part of the temporal lobe. The left temporal lobe helps to associate and categorize different types of meaningful information. gather the meaning of the word as legthis brain region coordinates visual, sensory, and motor information conveying how the feet look, feel and move.

The other was Heschl’s gyrus, which houses the auditory cortex (the cortex is the outermost layer of the brain) in the superior temporal lobe. Better reading ability was associated with a larger anterior part of the temporal lobe in the left hemisphere than in the right hemisphere. It makes sense that a larger brain area devoted to meaning makes words easier to understand and therefore read.

What may seem less intuitive is that the auditory cortex is involved in reading. Isn’t reading primarily a visual skill? Not only. To pair letters with speech sounds, we must first be aware of the sounds of the language. This phonological awareness a well established precursor for children’s reading development.

A thinner left Heschl’s gyrus has previously been associated with dyslexia. contains severe reading difficulties. My research shows that this variation in cortical thickness does not draw a simple dividing line between people with and without dyslexia. Instead, it involves a larger population in which a thicker auditory cortex is associated with more skilled reading.

Why Size Matters

Is thick always good? As for the cortical structure, no, not necessarily. We know that the auditory cortex has more myelin in the left hemisphere of most people. Myelin is a fatty substance that acts as an insulator for nerve fibers. It increases the speed of nerve communication and can also isolate the columns of brain cells from each other. Nerve columns is assumed to operate such as small processing units.

Their increased isolation and rapid communication in the left hemisphere may be thought to allow for the rapid, categorical processing necessary for language. We need to know if the speaker is using a category d or t when you say dear or to tear instead of detecting the exact point at which the vocal folds begin to vibrate.