Brain Research Learning to read changes the brain more than expected

Reading leads to massive brain restructuring
When children learn to read, it has a strong impact on their brain. Because for reading brain areas are converted, which were actually designed for other skills. But what happens in the adult adult brain when they learn to read later? An international team of researchers conducted a study on adult illiterate women and discovered that the changes in the brain due to late learning to read seem to be more profound than previously thought.

Brain areas are converted
From an evolutionary point of view, reading is a very young skill for which our brain was originally not equipped. Since there is no special "reading area", certain areas of the brain have to be converted during the learning process. Areas that were actually used to recognize complex objects like faces are now responsible for converting written letters into spoken language.

A new study shows how basic reading learning in adulthood affects our brain. (Image: ivanko80 / fotolia.com)

In children, these changes happen while the brain is still growing. But what happens in the brain of adults who learn to read later? Scientists from the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig and the MPI for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen have dealt with this question. Through a comprehensive research, which was now published in the journal "Science Advances", the researchers came to astonishing findings, according to the statement of the Max Planck Society (MPG).

Study with adult illiterate women
The team conducted a large-scale study of adult illiterate women in collaboration with Indian scientists from the Center for Bio-Medical Research (CBMR) Lucknow and Hyderabad University. They observed the changes taking place in women's brains as they learned to read and write. Using magnetic resonance imaging, the experts realized that after six months of reading training in the brains of women also had undergone restructuring.

Several brain areas affected
But unlike children, they did not just affect the cerebral cortex. This was already known that it adapts quickly to new challenges, explains study leader Falk Huettig from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. Instead, the reorganization in the course of learning to read even reached into the thalamus and the brainstem. Thus, areas would change that are evolutionarily quite old and even in mice and other mammals occur, the message continues.

"We have observed that the so-called superior colliculi, as parts of the brainstem and the so-called pulvinar in the thalamus, more closely link their activity patterns to areas of vision on the cerebral cortex," explains first author Michael Skeide of the MPI in Leipzig. "The thalamic and brainstem nuclei help our visual corpus to filter out important information from the flood of visual stimuli even before we consciously notice anything."

Experienced readers navigate more efficiently through texts
The scientists realized that the connection of the brain areas became stronger, the better the reading abilities of the subjects were already pronounced. "We therefore assume that these two brain systems work better together with increasing literacy skills," explains Michael Skeide. "In this way, experienced readers can probably navigate through text more efficiently."

Illiteracy rate in India at nearly 40 percent
The investigation took place in India, where the illiteracy rate according to the MPG is about 39 percent. Above all, women are affected who often have no access to education and thus to reading and writing. Many of the adult study participants were unable to decipher a single word in their native language, the Hindi, at the beginning of the learning process, the note said.

After six months of exercise, the participants had already reached a level comparable to that of a first year, reports the MPG. According to study leader Huettig, this increase in knowledge is remarkable. "Although it is very difficult for us as adults to learn a new language, reading seems different. The adult brain impressively demonstrates its formability, "explains the expert.

Study on reading-spelling disorder planned
The results of the study could also play an important role in the future handling of the so-called reading-spelling disorder (LRS), reports the MPG. For so far dysfunctions of the thalamus as a possible congenital cause of LRS in the conversation are. Based on the new findings, it may be that these abnormalities are only the result of a less trained visual system, so Skeide. To check this, a large study is now planned in which LRS sufferers are to be monitored over the years. (No)