This paper reviews three studies investigating the relationship between brain regions involved in executive control and those involved in reading comprehension in typically-developing teens. In the first study, three regions of posterior left lateral prefrontal cortex (i.e., precentral gyrus, inferior frontal junction, inferior frontal gyrus) were consistently activated across three task domains: reading comprehension, numerical estimation, and executive processes in working memory, suggesting these regions exert domain-general executive control. In a second study, brain activity in the precentral gyrus during reading comprehension was found to be associated with individual differences in reading achievement. A subsequent investigation indicated that while all three prefrontal regions exhibit greater connectivity to the angular gyrus during reading comprehension compared to symbol identification, each also exhibits unique connectivity to distinct posterior regions implicated in reading processes. Hence, reading difficulties during adolescence may arise, in part, from difficulties in executive control over processing in language-related brain regions.

中文翻译：

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青春期执行加工对阅读理解的影响

本文回顾了三项研究，调查了典型发育青少年中涉及执行控制的大脑区域和涉及阅读理解的大脑区域之间的关系。在第一项研究中，左后外侧前额叶皮层的三个区域（即中央前回、额下交界、额下回）在三个任务域中一致激活：阅读理解、数值估计和工作记忆中的执行过程，这表明这些区域行使领域一般执行控制权。在第二项研究中，发现阅读理解过程中中央前回的大脑活动与阅读成绩的个体差异有关。随后的研究表明，虽然与符号识别相比，在阅读理解过程中，所有三个前额叶区域都表现出与角回更大的连接性，但每个前额叶区域也与阅读过程中涉及的不同后部区域表现出独特的连接性。因此，青春期的阅读困难可能部分是由于语言相关大脑区域的执行控制困难造成的。