Dyslexia researchers at Ohio State University have identified a part of the visual cortex next to the fusiform gyrus - the part that performs facial recognition

Dyslexia researchers at Ohio State University have identified a part of the visual cortex next to the fusiform gyrus - the part that performs facial recognition - which is specialised for recognising written words in literate adults. The researchers analyzed fMRI scans of the brains of 40 newborns, all less than a week old, who were part of the Developing Human Connectome Project, to identify the Visual Word Form Area (VWFA). In newborns and pre-literate children, the VWFA is already connected to language centres, which predisposes it to the application of recognising word forms.