C Arrington
Georgia State University, GA·Neuroscience
Nearly one in five older youth in the United States struggles with basic reading, which raises their risk of unemployment and poor health. One possible cause is a brain-based difficulty in learning new words, especially words that sound alike.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Psychology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
reading disability
dyslexia
reading difficulties
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Nov 2026
What they work on
- Test whether inhibiting the left dorsal stream with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) slows sound processing and impairs learning and retention of similar-sounding made-up words in typical readers aged 16 to 21.
- Test whether the same dorsal stream inhibition speeds sound processing and improves learning and retention of similar-sounding made-up words in youth with reading difficulties, compared with sham stimulation.
- Explore whether baseline variability in brain activity, measured with functional MRI (fMRI), predicts individual differences in how strongly rTMS changes word learning in both groups.
More about the research
The team has previously reported that children and youth with reading disabilities have trouble learning and remembering similar-sounding made-up words, such as "pibu" versus "pibo" or "dibu." That pattern suggests their mental representations of the sounds of new words are unstable. What remains unknown is how the brain's language networks produce this difficulty, particularly in older youth who have struggled for years.
Why it matters
Older adolescents and young adults with persistent reading difficulties face higher risks of unemployment and poor health. By clarifying how a brain reading pathway supports learning similar-sounding new words, this work lays groundwork for future studies of whether non-invasive brain stimulation could be added to reading treatment to boost learning in this group.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Ying-Hui Chou
University of Arizona, AZ·Neuroscience
Determine whether excitatory or inhibitory rTMS, magnetic pulses delivered through the scalp and aimed at the hippocampus, improves memory more than sham stimulation, in a randomized crossover trial of 60 adults with amnestic mild cognitive impairment.
Zafiris Daskalakis
University of California-San Diego, CA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Compare standard, clustered and sham maintenance rTMS over six months in 75 adults with treatment-resistant depression, testing which best sustains connectivity between the DLPFC and SGC measured by TMS-EEG.
Desmond Oathes
University of Pennsylvania, PA·Neuroscience
Establish that TMS targeted with resting-state fMRI connectivity modulates the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC), a deep mood-related region, using interleaved TMS/fMRI to record brain responses to stimulation.
The school
Georgia State University: 9 labs on PI Pages, $241M a year on research, 300 research doctorates a year.
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