Schedule of Events | Symposia

Task-based fMRI analysis of symbol form areas in 6-8 year-old children

Poster Session F - Tuesday, April 1, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Amelia C. Murray1 (ameliacmurray@gmail.com), Zoha Arif1, Emily M. Harriott1, Sophia Vinci-Booher1, Laurie E. Cutting1, Eric D. Wilkey1; 1Vanderbilt University

Separate areas in the inferior temporal lobes are often associated with letter and number processing, known as symbol form areas. The Number Form Area (NFA) shows preference for processing Arabic digits and the Visual Word Form Area (VWFA) shows a preference for words. The present study explored the location and specificity of these symbol form areas in a sample of young children with emerging literacy and numeracy skills (n = 22, 6-8 years old). Children completed two fMRI tasks, a single-digit numerical comparison task (i.e., which of two numbers is greater?) and a lexical one-back task (i.e., was the word repeated?). We modeled blood-oxygen-level dependent signal for each task using a general linear model and then contrasted (1) all task conditions vs. baseline and (2) numbers vs. lexical tasks at the whole brain level. When we compared numbers versus lexical tasks at a threshold of p < 0.001 and k > 10, activation in the right inferior temporal region was greater for numbers than letters and only during the number comparison task, indicating that the putative NFA area exhibits right-lateralized processing. In contrast, activation in the left inferior temporal region was greater for letters than numbers and only during the lexical task, supporting the presence of a left-lateralized VWFA in this sample. These results will inform future analyses of developing white-matter pathways and provide insight into the neural correlates underlying the math and reading networks of young children with emerging academic skills.

Topic Area: PERCEPTION & ACTION: Other

CNS Account Login

CNS2025-Logo_FNL_HZ-150_REV

March 29–April 1  |  2025

Latest from Twitter