Congenital Unilateral Deafness Affects Cerebral Organization of Reading

Brain Sciences

Roberta Adorni¹  Mirella Manfredi² 

[1] Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell’Ateneo Nuovo 1, Milan 20126, Italy;

关键词: ERPs;    LORETA (low resolution electromagnetic tomography);    N170;    ventral occipito-temporal (vOT) cortex;    reading;    deafness;    hemispheric asymmetry;    neuroplasticity;   

DOI  :  10.3390/brainsci3020908

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

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.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2013 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.