Models of reading emphasize that visual (orthographic) processing provides input to phonological as well as lexical–semantic processing. Neurobiological models of reading have mapped these processes to distributed regions across occipital–temporal, temporal–parietal, and frontal cortices. However, the role of the precentral gyrus in these models is ambiguous. Articulatory phonemic representations in the precentral gyrus are obviously involved in reading aloud, but it is unclear if the precentral gyrus is recruited during reading silently in a time window consistent with participation in phonological processing contributions. Here, we recorded intracranial electrophysiology during a speeded semantic decision task from 24 patients to map the spatio-temporal flow of information across the cortex during silent reading. Patients selected animate nouns from a stream of nonanimate words, letter strings, and false-font stimuli. We characterized the distribution and timing of evoked high-gamma power (70–170 Hz) as well as phase-locking between electrodes. The precentral gyrus showed a proportion of electrodes responsive to linguistic stimuli (27%) that was at least as high as those of surrounding peri-sylvian regions. These precentral gyrus electrodes had significantly greater high-gamma power for words compared to both false-font and letter-string stimuli. In a patient with word-selective effects in the fusiform, superior temporal, and precentral gyri, there was significant phase-locking between the fusiform and precentral gyri starting at ∼180 msec and between the precentral and superior temporal gyri starting at ∼220 msec. Finally, our large patient cohort allowed exploratory analyses of the spatio-temporal reading network underlying silent reading. The distribution, timing, and connectivity results place the precentral gyrus as an important hub in the silent reading network.

阅读模型强调视觉（拼写）处理为语音和词汇语义处理提供输入。阅读的神经生物学模型已将这些过程映射到枕叶、颞叶、颞顶和额叶皮质的分布区域。然而，中央前回在这些模型中的作用并不明确。中央前回的发音音位表征显然与朗读有关，但尚不清楚在默读过程中中央前回是否在与参与语音处理贡献一致的时间窗口内被招募。在这里，我们记录了 24 名患者在快速语义决策任务期间的颅内电生理学，以绘制默读期间穿过皮质的时空信息流。患者从一系列无生命的单词、字母串和错误字体刺激中选择有生命的名词。我们表征了诱发高伽马功率（70-170 Hz）的分布和时间以及电极之间的锁相。中央前回显示出对语言刺激有反应的电极比例（27%），至少与周围的侧裂周围区域一样高。与错误字体和字母串刺激相比，这些中央前回电极对单词具有显着更大的高伽马功率。在梭状回、颞上回和中央前回具有词选择效应的患者中，梭状回和中央前回之间从约 180 毫秒开始，中央前回和颞上回之间从约 220 毫秒开始存在显着的锁相。最后，我们的大型患者队列允许对默读背后的时空阅读网络进行探索性分析。 分布、时间和连接结果使中央前回成为无声阅读网络的重要枢纽。