Reading and the corpus callosum: an MRI family study of volume and area

Abstract

This study examines the corpus callosum in 68 readers nested in 24 families. Callosa were measured and controlled for whole brain volume, intelligence, and gender. The relation of corpus callosum size to the within-family variance of oral reading was investigated with various measurements: volume, midsagittal area, and anterior-to-posterior one-fifth area segmentations. Because this is the first known publication of MRI calculations of corpus callosum volume, some basic questions about bilateral symmetry and the efficacy of area versus volumetric measurements were explored. Results suggest that better readers within families have larger midsagittal areas at the midbody. Although reliably measured, volume did not contribute to oral reading but was highly correlated with area. Bilateral volumes of the corpus callosum were symmetric.