• Jie Dong, Chengrou Lu, Chuansheng Chen, Huiling Li, Xiaoyu Liu, and Leilei Mei.
• Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, Center for Studies of Psychological Application and School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China.
• Neuroscience. 2020 Mar 15; 430: 94-104.

AbstractPrevious studies have identified the ventral and dorsal brain regions that respectively support semantic and non-semantic phonological access. Nevertheless, the specific role of the left occipitotemporal cortex (lOTC) in the two pathways of phonological access is ambiguous. To address that question, the present study compared word reading in Chinese (presumably relying on the semantic pathway) with that in English (presumably relying on the non-semantic pathway). Results revealed a clear dissociation in the involvement of the anterior and posterior lOTC in semantic and non-semantic phonological access. Specifically, the anterior lOTC showed greater activation for Chinese than for English, whereas the posterior lOTC showed greater activation for English than for Chinese. More importantly, both psychophysiological interaction analysis and resting-state functional connectivity analysis showed that the anterior lOTC was functionally connected to the ventral brain regions (e.g., left anterior fusiform gyrus, anterior temporal lobe, and ventral inferior frontal gyrus), whereas the posterior lOTC was functionally connected to the dorsal brain regions (e.g., left posterior superior temporal gyrus, supramarginal gyrus, and dorsal inferior frontal gyrus). These results suggest that the anterior and posterior lOTC are involved in semantic and non-semantic phonological access, respectively.Copyright © 2020 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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