COMMENT: The Exciting Promise of MSI
The dawn of a new age in the research of brain function and the possibilities for reading instruction
by Pam Protheroe
What could be more useful to those engaged in teaching reading than knowing precisely what happens in the brain at each moment when a successful learner is reacting to input?
We stand at the frontier of a whole new era in educational research where this sort of information is becoming available through non-invasive brain scanning.
 | Magnetic Source Imaging – MSI – is functional brain imaging but unique in that it assesses neural activity in real time. In other words we can see what neurons are ‘firing’ in successful learners at the moment they are firing. |
Past investigations through scanning were always limited to what was happening in the brains of non-achieving learners because scanning techniques were invasive and had to be justified; inferences about brain activity in successful learners had to be drawn from those findings.
The simple questions before were of this type:
♦ Is the brain related to reading disability?
♦ What areas of the brain ‘cause’ reading disability?
More complex questions can now be asked involving the interplay of experience, instruction and the brain.
MSI shows that during reading, the brain is involved in critical ways and that this involvement is closely linked with how children learn to read.
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Teaching methods and resources have been shown to cause some of the problems that used to be thought were due to brain abnormalities.
As this research advances you can become part of the solution and not part of the problem!