Functional network architecture of reading-related regions across development.

Overview

Reading requires coordinated neural processing across a large number of brain regions. Studying relationships between reading-related regions informs the specificity of information processing performed in each region. Here, regions of interest were defined from a meta-analysis of reading studies, including a developmental study. Relationships between regions were defined as temporal correlations in spontaneous fMRI signal; i.e., resting state functional connectivity MRI (RSFC). Graph theory based network analysis defined the community structure of the "reading-related" regions. Regions sorted into previously defined communities, such as the fronto-parietal and cingulo-opercular control networks, and the default mode network. This structure was similar in children, and no apparent "reading" community was defined in any age group. These results argue against regions, or sets of regions, being specific or preferential for reading, instead indicating that regions used in reading are also used in a number of other tasks.