ID:15819 the Effects of Theta-Burst Stimulation on Reading Fluency in Typical and Impaired Adult Readers

Adults with reading disabilities (RD) often struggle with slow and dysfluent reading throughout their life, even following behavioral intervention. Research suggests that improvement in reading speed and fluency is accompanied by critical changes in the brain’s left-lateralized reading network. This network consists of two major pathways: a dorsal pathway with a major node at the supramarginal gyrus (SMG), and a ventral pathway with a major node at the middle temporal gyrus (MTG). Theta-burst stimulation (TBS) to key nodes of the reading network (MTG and SMG) has been shown to produce behavioral changes in word reading (1,3,4). We examined the effects of iTBS and cTBS on reading speed and fluency in both typical adult readers (TR) and adults with reading disabilities (RD). Our aims were to 1.) identify which stimulation targets produce the greatest improvement in word recognition speed and in performance on standardized measures of reading fluency and to 2.) compare the effects of different stimulation paradigms (iTBS and cTBS) on change in word recognition speed and fluency post stimulation.