Crossroads in the Learning Brain: The Neural Overlap Between Arithmetic and Phonological Processing

Robust behavioral evidence suggests an association between reading and math performance. Moreover, previous neuroimaging evidence suggests that arithmetic fact retrieval is supported by similar areas along the perisylvian language network as those typically involved in phonological processing. However, the neural correlates of these abilities have been mostly studied in isolation, and therefore remains unclear whether these abilities recruit functionally overlapping brain areas. We addressed this question by using functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure brain activity during an arithmetic and a word rhyming task. We then used both a test of univariate overlap and a rigorous pattern similarity analysis to provide a more nuanced assessment of brain-level associations across both domains. We identified clusters of significant overlap along the left inferior frontal gyrus, the left inferior temporal gyrus, and the right posterior cerebellum in adults; as well as multiple clusters along the left frontal gyrus in children. Moreover, we found significant similarity between the patterns corresponding to both abilities along the clusters of overlap. However, contrary to our expectations, we observed higher similarity between phonological processing and large problems than small problems, which grants the need for further research about the role of arithmetic strategies in this relationship. Our findings represent a contribution to the literature examining the potential links between the brain regions supporting arithmetic and word reading by providing direct, within-participant statistical evidence of the long-hypothesized overlap between these processes at the neural level.