ArticleCommunications biology2021
Graphomotor memory in Exner's area enhances word learning in the blind.
Article in Communications biology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 4 citations in OpenAlex.
- Language mapping during awake brain surgery in a deaf patient with a brain tumor: illustrative case.Journal of neurosurgery. Case lessons · 2025Article
- Neural representation of sensorimotor features in language-motor areas during auditory and visual perception.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Stroke disconnectome decodes reading networks.Brain structure & function · 2022Article
- Facilitative Effects of Embodied English Instruction in Chinese Children.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Handwriting is thought to impede vocabulary learning in sighted adults because the motor execution of writing interferes with efficient audiovisual processing during encoding. However, the motor memory of writing may facilitate adult word learning when visual sensory inputs are severely restricted. Using functional MRI, we show that late-blind participants, but not sighted participants, learned novel words by recruiting the left dorsal premotor cortex known as Exner's writing area and its functional coupling with the left hippocampus. During later recall, the phonological and semantic contents of these words are represented in the activation patterns of the left hippocampus as well as in those of left frontotemporal language areas. These findings suggest that motor codes of handwriting help blind participants maintain word-form representations during learning and retrieval. We propose that such reliance on the motor system reflects a broad architecture of the cerebral language network which encompasses the limb motor system as a hardwired component.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.