Given that humans only get over written communication a few thousand year ago , it seems unlikely that our mental capacity would have had enough sentence to evolve new mechanism specifically for reading and writing . In spitefulness of this , it has been recognize for many long time that a picky psyche region called thevisual password figure area(VWFA ) exists in the brainiac of literate people , and reacts only to the tidy sum of pen letters and words . Now , a new study in the journalNature Neuroscienceindicates that even before we learn to take , a part of our brain is specifically primed for this precise project .
Thecerebral cortexof the human brain consists of dozens of region , each of which performs a exceptional function . The VWFA is one such region , but only exists in people who have study to record – unlike the odd fusiform typeface area ( lFFA ) , whichrecognizes facesand exists even in illiterate children .
While these regions rebel in roughly the same home in all learning ability , their accurate location can take issue more or less from person to somebody . Yet by examining the brain connectivity of young children before they learned to read , the study source were able to pinpoint precisely where their VWFAs would form once they became literate a few years later . This suggests that the brain ’s ability to learn to say is rooted in its integral connectivity .
The research worker begin by skim the nous of a group of five - yr - olds , noting that while they already displayed clear lFFAs that reacted to the presence of faces , no part of the mind was yet able to distinguish between faces and letters . Three eld later , when participants had become literate , the scientists scan their mentality again , reveal that they had now acquire VWFAs that responded specifically to seeing words and letter , but not front .
By then returning to the earlier scan and search at the “ connectivity footmark ” of a part of the cortex call the left occipitotemporal anatomic parcel – mean the means that it communicated with other parts of the head – the research worker were able to figure out on the nose which mathematical group of neurons would go on to form theVWFAat eld eight .
In other words , the connectivity profile of a modest part of the five - year - onetime brain is specifically designed to be able to con to interpret , even before that fry have it off his or her ABCs .
Study co - author Zeynep Saygin said in astatementthat “ it ’s really powerful to be able to predict usable development three days forward of clip , ” as it could allow Dr. to identify sure neurologic job even before they spring up .
