UNDERSTANDING BRAIN REORGANISATION DYNAMICS DURING LEARNING TO READ BRAILLE: (DIS)SIMILARITIES BETWEEN TACTILE AND VISUAL READING

• Published in: Acta neurobiologiae experimentalis Vol. 82; p. LXXVIII
• Main Authors: Gaca, Maciej, Olszewska, Alicja M, Paplińska, Małgorzata, Kulesza, Agnieszka, Droździel, Dawid, Jednoróg, Katarzyna, Matuszewski, Jacek, Herman, Aleksandra M, Marchewka, Artur
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Warsaw Polish Academy of Sciences 01.01.2022
• Subjects: Braille; Brain; Brain mapping; Cortex (motor); Cross-modal; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Language; Learning; Neural plasticity; Observational learning; Occipital lobe; Reading; Sensorimotor integration; Sensory integration; Similarity; Touch; Visual observation
• ISSN: 0065-1400

It is well established that the human brain is subject to reorganisation upon learning new skills. Previous studies on sighted individuals showed enhanced brain activity when reading using touch. After three months of tactile Braille reading, it was visible in motor and language areas, including the visual word form area (VWFA). However, there are still open questions about the time-course of neuroplasticity in the first weeks of learning. Seventeen participants (female, aged 19 – 23) underwent a seven-month tactile Braille course with elements of visual Braille. We tested Braille's letter and word reading speed in tactile and visual domains and observed a positive trend throughout the course. Lexical Decision Tasks (LDT) in tactile and visual Braille were used in fMRI. After just 7 days of learning, we observed changes in activation in the reading network (including VWFA) in visual LDT but not in tactile LDT, which produced VWFA activation only after 6 weeks of learning. The results suggest unimodal plasticity precedes cross-modal plasticity, while the latter occurs quicker than previously thought. We also mapped similarities and differences in activation during LDT tasks. We observed similarities in regions of the reading network and differences mostly in occipital areas and motor cortex.