Word: fmri
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Using fMRI, scientists have determined that beginning readers rely most heavily on the phoneme producer and the word analyzer. The first of these helps a person say things--silently or out loud--and does some analysis of the phonemes found in words. The second analyzes words more thoroughly, pulling them apart into their constituent syllables and phonemes and linking the letters to their sounds...
That breakthrough came in the 1990s with the development of a technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Basically, fMRI allows researchers to see which parts of the brain are getting the most blood--and hence are the most active--at any given point in time...
Neuroscientists have used fMRI to identify three areas of the left side of the brain that play key roles in reading. Scientifically, these are known as the left inferior frontal gyrus, the left parieto-temporal area and the left occipito-temporal area. But for our purposes, it's more helpful to think of them as the "phoneme producer," the "word analyzer" and the "automatic detector." We'll describe these regions in the order in which they are activated, but you'll get closer to the truth if you think of them as working simultaneously, like the sections of an orchestra...
...situation is different for children with dyslexia. Brain scans suggest that a glitch in their brain prevents them from easily gaining access to the word analyzer and the automatic detector. In the past year, several fMRI studies have shown that dyslexics tend to compensate for the problem by overactivating the phoneme producer...
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which employs large magnets to make images of the brain, researchers could track the flow of blood to different parts of the brain during memory formation and recall...