The existence of brain areas responsible for reading, actively studied by researchers for almost two hundred years.
Scientists from the Department of neurosurgery of the University of Pittsburgh analyzed this question in their work, the results of which appeared in the publication Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study conducted by Elizabeth Hirshorn, a scientist from the Center for research and development, Pitta (LRDC) and her colleagues from the Department of psychology and Center for neural bases of cognition.
They used direct neural recording and brain stimulation to study the role of visual word form in the brain while reading in four patients suffering from epilepsy. Within surgical treatment, neurosurgeons implanted electrodes in the visual form of words, providing an unprecedented opportunity to understand how the brain recognizes printed words. Painless electrical stimulation of the brain was used via the electrodes to disrupt the normal functioning of the visual form in words that had a negative impact on the ability of patients to read words.
One patient suddenly took the letter, and the other felt that there were words or parts of words that he read. Stimulation in this part of the brain did not violate their ability to name objects or people’s faces. Using machine learning methods for analyzing brain activity that has evolved over several hundred milliseconds in this field, the researchers could say a word, the patient reads at a particular moment.
This study will help to answer the questions of memory and brain activity, and to develop new treatments for mental illnesses.
