A new study released shows that children who take part in intensive remedial reading programs not only become better readers but can also end up with rewired brains that are better at communicating.
Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University scanned the brains of 72 eight to 10 year old children both before and after they went through a six-month program aimed at making them better readers.
The scans showed that the quality of white matter, which is the brain tissue that carries signals between areas of grey matter, where information is processed, improved substantially after 100 hours of remedial reading training.
The study, which is published in the journal Neuron, also found that while the imaging indicated that the white matter had become more efficient at transmitting signals, testing showed that the children could read better.
“Showing that it’s possible to rewire a brain’s white matter has important implications for treating reading disabilities and other developmental disorders, including autism,” said the researchers.
Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, which helped fund the study, said the scientists’ findings “suggest an exciting new approach to be tested in the treatment of mental disorders, which increasingly appear to be due to problems in specific brain circuits.”
