Examining the Causal Role of Putative Reading Areas in Individuals with Varying Reading Skills and Reading Difficulty History

Poster Session E - Monday, March 31, 2025, 2:30 – 4:30 pm EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Zhichao Xia¹ (zhichao.xia@uconn.edu), Nikki Arrington², Brianna Kinnie¹, Robin Morris², Fumiko Hoeft¹; ¹University of Connecticut, ²Georgia State University

The causal role of the putative reading network remains an open question. Continuous theta-burst stimulation (cTBS), which can suppress/activate neural activity in targeted regions, offers a promising approach. This study investigated the effect of cTBS on the left temporo-parietal cortex (LTPC), right temporo-parietal cortex (RTPC), and left precentral gyrus (LPrCG). 114 young adults with varying reading skills, including some with histories of reading difficulty (RD), were recruited. Before and after cTBS, participants performed rhyming and identity judgment tasks under “suppression” (covertly repeating /dop/) and “interference” (hearing /dop/) contexts. We hypothesized that cTBS to LTPC and LPrCG would impair performance under the suppression context, as the rhyming judgment task load will increase under covert speech due to its recruiting both the phonology (that includes LPTC) and articulation (LPrCG) systems. In contrast, the interference context would only reduce performance for cTBS to LTPC because it would tax only the phonological system. As hypothesized, the results revealed (1) cTBS to LTPC significantly impaired rhyming under suppression (accuracy) and interference (accuracy, reaction time, and variance); (2) cTBS to LPrCG significantly impaired rhyming under suppression (accuracy), with greater effects in participants with severe RD history. Additionally, cTBS to RTPC impaired accuracy under the interference context. cTBS did not significantly impair the performance in the control orthography conditions. These findings support the critical role of LTPC in phonological processing and LPrCG in articulation. This study also supports suggestions that articulation may serve as a putative compensatory strategy in individuals with RD history.

Topic Area: LANGUAGE: Other