Neurodevelopmental commonalities in cognitive control networks for mathematics and reading in meta-analysis of 3308 participants.

ABSTRACT: Mathematics and reading abilities are foundational academic skills that are robustly correlated across development, suggesting shared cognitive mechanisms. To identify their common neural architecture, we conducted the largest cross-domain meta-analysis to date (179 experiments, 3308 participants). By analyzing activation patterns across simple and complex tasks in both children and adults, we uncovered three key insights into how the brain supports academic performance and learning. First, while mathematical processing recruits frontal-parietal regions and reading frontal-temporal regions, both domains rely on shared cognitive control networks. The salience network in particular, anchored by the bilateral insula and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, supports both mathematical and reading pro

SUBMITTER: Unal ZE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12462466 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature