Abstract
The ventral occipitotemporal cortex (vOTC) is crucial for recognizing visual patterns; a subset of this circuitry can be trained to rapidly identify word forms. Here, we characterize vOTC reading circuitry using a multimodal approach combining functional, structural, quantitative MRI and behavioral data. Two distinct word-responsive vOTC areas emerged: a posterior area involved in visual feature extraction, structurally connected to the intraparietal sulcus via the vertical occipital fasciculus; and, an anterior area involved in integrating information with other regions of the language network, structurally connected to the angular gyrus via the posterior arcuate fasciculus. Furthermore, functional activation in these vOTC regions predicted reading behavior outside of the scanner. Differences in the microarchitectonic properties of grey matter cells in these segregated areas were also observed, in line with earlier cytoarchitectonic evidence. These findings advance our understanding of the vOTC circuitry by linking functional responses to anatomical structure, revealing the pathways of distinct reading-related processes.