During development the brain can repurpose parts when learning to recognize faces and to read
Scientists studied the brain activity of school-aged children during development and found that regions that activated upon seeing limbs (hands, legs, etc.) subsequently activated upon seeing faces or words when the children grew older. The research, by scientists at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, reveals new insights about vision development in the brain and could help inform prevention and treatment strategies for learning disorders. The study was funded by the National Eye Institute.
“Our study addresses how experiences, such as learning to read, shape the developing brain,” said Kalanit Grill-Spector, PhD, a professor at Stanford University’s Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. “Further, it sheds light on the initial functional role of brain regions that later in development process written words, before they support this important skill of reading.”
Grill-Spector’s team used functional MRI to study areas in the ventral temporal cortex (VTC) that are stimulated by the recognition of images. About 30 children, ages 5 to 12 at their first MRI, participated in the study. While in the MRI scanner, the children viewed images from 10 different categories, including words, body parts, faces, objects, and places. The researchers mapped areas of VTC that exhibited stimulation and measured how they changed in intensity and volume on the children’s subsequent MRI tests over the next one to five years.
