Research is now showing that recycling of a brain network might have contributed to humans’ ability to read. The study was conducted on primates and monitored 500 neural sites in their brain.
The evolution of humans has been in the making for millions of years, growing in complexity and efficiency over these years. One organ, however, stands out and separates humans from their fellow primates, the human brain.
The brain is only two percent of the human anatomy but consumes over 20 percent of all the energy produced by humans. However, it is only in the last few thousand years that humans have started using the brain for reading.
Recycling a brain network for reading
A new study is now shedding light on how the human brain adapted to reading. The study found that human brains may have ‘recycled’ a key region of the brain to help it develop reading skills.
The study was compared with brains from other primates that are closest to humans. The area of focus was narrowed down to the inferior temporal (IT) cortex in the primate’s brain and was found capable of interpreting strings of letters into meaningful thoughts.
The study found that the human brain did not evolve an entirely different region of the brain to use in reading. However, they repurposed the IT cortex region to form a brain network that could be used to interpret strings to something meaningful.
The study also found that rewiring of the brain created new brain networks in the region, that were used for reading and included monitoring 500 neural sites in an animal’s brain. The animals were then shown over 2,000 words and their brain activity was observed using implanted electrodes. The data obtained from these regions were then fed to a computer model, which computed and showed how different words and letters were interpreted in the brain.
Neuroscientist Rishi Rajalingham, from MIT and one of the researchers, said that the best thing about using this method was that they did not need to train animals on how to read. The only thing that was required were the electrodes and the primates participation and the data obtained could be fed into computer models to make intelligent guesses on the nature of each string.
The research conclusion was a confirmation that the evolution of the human brain involved changing the inferior temporal cortex into making them having the ability to make sense of words and symbols through forming a complex brain network.
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