Emerging neural specialization of the ventral occipitotemporal cortex to characters through phonological association learning in preschool children

Pleisch, Georgette; Karipidis, Iliana I; Brauchli, Christian; Röthlisberger, Martina; Hofstetter, Christoph; Stämpfli, Philipp; Walitza, Susanne; Brem, Silvia

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.01.046

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Pleisch, G., Karipidis, I. I., Brauchli, C., Röthlisberger, M., Hofstetter, C., Stämpfli, P., Walitza, S., & Brem, S. (2019). Emerging neural specialization of the ventral occipitotemporal cortex to characters through phonological association learning in preschool children. NeuroImage, 189, 813–831. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.01.046

Abstract

The ventral occipitotemporal (vOT) cortex serves as a core region for visual processing, and specific areas of this region show preferential activation for various visual categories such as faces and print. The emergence of such functional specialization in the human cortex represents a pivotal developmental process, which provides a basis for targeted and efficient information processing. For example, functional specialization to print in the left vOT is an important prerequisite for fluent reading. However, it remains unclear, which