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      Adding words to the brain's visual dictionary: novel word learning selectively sharpens orthographic representations in the VWFA.

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          Abstract

          The nature of orthographic representations in the human brain is still subject of much debate. Recent reports have claimed that the visual word form area (VWFA) in left occipitotemporal cortex contains an orthographic lexicon based on neuronal representations highly selective for individual written real words (RWs). This theory predicts that learning novel words should selectively increase neural specificity for these words in the VWFA. We trained subjects to recognize novel pseudowords (PWs) and used fMRI rapid adaptation to compare neural selectivity with RWs, untrained PWs (UTPWs), and trained PWs (TPWs). Before training, PWs elicited broadly tuned responses, whereas responses to RWs indicated tight tuning. After training, TPW responses resembled those of RWs, whereas UTPWs continued to show broad tuning. This change in selectivity was specific to the VWFA. Therefore, word learning appears to selectively increase neuronal specificity for the new words in the VWFA, thereby adding these words to the brain's visual dictionary.

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          Author and article information

          Journal
          J. Neurosci.
          The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience
          1529-2401
          0270-6474
          Mar 25 2015
          : 35
          : 12
          Affiliations
          [1 ] Department of Neuroscience, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, District of Columbia 20007.
          [2 ] Department of Neuroscience, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, District of Columbia 20007 mr287@georgetown.edu.
          Article
          35/12/4965
          10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4031-14.2015
          25810526
          62487d69-5e7d-4f3a-aaf2-560d2fcd2acc
          Copyright © 2015 the authors 0270-6474/15/354965-08$15.00/0.
          History

          VWFA,language,learning,object recognition,plasticity,reading
          VWFA, language, learning, object recognition, plasticity, reading

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