The Effect Of Reading Deficiency On White Matter Fiber Among Chinese Illiterates

Illiterates are special adult groups who do not have the ability to read and write.The deficit of reading ability has a bad effect on their social development.Previous studies on the structure of reading-related white matter in alphabetic language showed that left superior longitudinal fasciculus,arcuate fasciculus,inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus,inferior longitudinal fasciculus,uncinate fasciculus and corpus callosum played different roles in reading,but these researches only found the significant differences in white matter structures,such as the left arcuate fasciculus and the splenium of corpus callosum among illiterate and literate groups.While Chinese writing system is different from the alphabetic writing system,and the functional imaging studies of Chinese character reading showed that Chinese reading was accompanied with higher-level activation in the right hemisphere.Therefore,we also take the right part of the above fiber into consideration.The purpose of this study is to explore whether there are differences in reading-related fibers between Chinese illiterates and literates.Therefore,Chinese illiterate and literate group were recruited in this study,we used the high angular resolution diffusion imaging technology to explore whether there were differences between these two groups in reading-related fibers for the first time.Statistical analysis showed that there were significant differences between two groups in the aspect of the whole and local diffusion property.More concretely,it is found that the whole diffusion property of callosum forceps major and the local diffusion property of the right superior longitudinal fasciculus in the illiterate group were significantly lower than the literate group,which suggested that the two fibers are involved in Chinese reading.Conversely,this study also found that the local diffusion property of callosum forceps minor,the fiber involving in motor learning,of the former was significantly higher than the latter,which may reflected that the special experience of illiterate group,who often engage in manual labor,and get plenty training incoordinating their hands.In summary,this study provides a good empirical support for understanding the neuropsychological characteristics of illiterates and the structure of white matter fiber in Chinese reading.