SPX
Apr 21, 2006 Washington, DC - Humans have an uncanny ability to skim through text, instantly recognizing words by their shape - even though writing developed only about 6000 years ago - long after humans evolved. Thus, neuroscientists have hotly debated whether an area of the cortex called the Visual Word Form Area (VWFA) is truly a specific and necessary area for recognizing words.
Functional MRI scans have shown that the area specifically activates when people read, as opposed to recognizing other objects, such as faces or houses. And people with lesions in the region lose the ability to recognize whole words - reduced to letter-by-letter reading. However, fMRI studies cannot demonstrate a causal role for the VWFA, and lesions involving the VWFA invariably involved other regions as well. Now, a patient whose surgery to relieve epilepsy specifically disrupted the VWFA has given researchers, led by Laurent Cohen of the Hôpital de la Salpêtrière, an opportunity to demonstrate that the region does indeed play a causal role in the ability to recognize words. |
AFP
Apr 21, 2006 |
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