FMRI of Ventral and Dorsal Processing Streams in B

Authors: Ron Borowsky Jacqueline Cummine William J Owen Chris Kelland Friesen Francis Shih Gordon E Sarty

Publish Date: 2006/07/15

Volume: 18, Issue: 4, Pages: 233-239

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Abstract

Most current models of the neurophysiology of basic reading processes agree on a system involving two cortical streams a ventral stream occipitaltemporal used when accessing familiar words encoded in lexical memory and a dorsal stream occipitalparietalfrontal used when phonetically decoding words ie mapping sublexical spelling onto sounds The models diverge however on the issue of whether the insular cortex is involved The present fMRI study required participants to read aloud exception words eg ‘one’ which must be read via lexical memory and pseudohomophones eg ‘wun’ which must be read via sublexical spelling to sound translation to examine the processing streams as well as the insular cortex and their relationship to lexical and sublexical reading processes The present study supports the notion of independent ventrallexical and dorsalsublexical streams and further suggests the insular cortex to be sensitive to phonological processing particularly sublexical spellingsound translation These latter findings illuminate the nature of insular activity during reading which must be explored further in future studies and accounted for in models of the neurophysiology of reading

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