新的研究提示，学习阅读，即使是在成年的时候，对脑子来说也是一个十分重要的经历，它需要脑子重新分配其某些资源，因此诸如面孔识别等其它功能必须放弃其部分的势力范围。
阅读在人类历史中是一个相对较新的发明，因此研究人员一般认为，我们的脑子在学习如何阅读的时候是在快速地进行着适应反应，而不是依赖古老的进化机制来处理视觉信息。 Stanislas Dehaene及其在法国、巴西、葡萄牙、和比利时的同事应用fMRI来扫描63位葡萄牙和巴西实验参与者的脑子；这些参与者被分为三组：不会阅读的成年人、在孩童时学会阅读的成年人以及在成年时学会阅读的成年人。 （与之不同的是，大多数成年人的神经成像实验都是在接受过高等教育的大学生中开展的。）
结果显示，阅读改善了在枕叶皮层中的水平方向的视觉刺激处理，并导致了在颞叶皮层中出现了一个词语的专门化区域。 在颞叶皮层中的专供面孔信息处理的区域缩小，但文章的作者说，人们将需要做更多的研究来确认这是否真的引起了对我们面孔识别能力的伤害。 在那些在成年时学会阅读的成年人中也发生了类似的变化，表明这些神经通路在成年时期仍然能够支持学习。
推荐英文摘要：
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1194140
How Learning to Read Changes the Cortical Networks for Vision and Language
Stanislas Dehaene,1,2,3,4,* Felipe Pegado,1,2,3 Lucia W. Braga,5 Paulo Ventura,6 Gilberto Nunes Filho,5 Antoinette Jobert,1,2,3 Ghislaine Dehaene-Lambertz,1,2,3 Régine Kolinsky,7,8 José Morais,7 Laurent Cohen9,10,11
Does literacy improve brain function? Does it also entail losses? Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we measured brain responses to spoken and written language, visual faces, houses, tools, and checkers in adults of variable literacy (10 were illiterate, 22 became literate as adults, and 31 became literate in childhood). As literacy enhanced the left fusiform activation evoked by writing, it induced a small competition with faces at this location but also broadly enhanced visual responses in fusiform and occipital cortex, extending to area V1. Literacy also enhanced phonological activation to speech in the planum temporale and afforded a top-down activation of orthography from spoken inputs. Most changes occurred even when literacy was acquired in adulthood, emphasizing that both childhood and adult education can profoundly refine cortical organization.
