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We used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to map the spatiotemporal evolution of cortical activity for visual word recognition. We show that for five-letter words, activity in the left hemisphere (LH) fusiform gyrus expands systematically in both the posterior-anterior and medial-lateral directions over the course of the first 500 ms after stimulus presentation. Contrary to what would be expected from cognitive models and hemodynamic studies, the component of this activity that spatially coincides with the visual word form area (VWFA) is not active until around 200 ms post-stimulus, and critically, this activity is preceded by and co-active with activity in parts of the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG, BA44/6). The spread of activity in the VWFA for words does not appear in isolation but is co-active in parallel with spread of activity in anterior middle temporal gyrus (aMTG, BA 21 and 38), posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG, BA37/39), and IFG.

Original publication

DOI

10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.05.004

Type

Journal article

Journal

Neuroimage

Publication Date

08/2004

Volume

22

Pages

1819 - 1825

Keywords

Adult, Brain Mapping, Decision Making, Dominance, Cerebral, Evoked Potentials, Visual, Female, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Imaging, Three-Dimensional, Magnetics, Magnetoencephalography, Male, Memory, Short-Term, Middle Aged, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Reading, Verbal Learning