Notes on Reading in the Brain, Stanislas Dehaene, 2009

Dehaene (here after referred to as "D") argues that while the brain certainly continues to learn, reading comes through a very defined and limited set of structures, a "genetically constrained circuit" (p. 7). He is not of the anything goes in the brain theory (no blank slate for D).

He suggests the neuronal recycling hypothesis: the brain has strong genetic constraints with some circuits having some variability. THis limited plasticity can account for how it is we, as humans, learned to read. Not surprisingly, the brain is not efficient at its task because it has to appropriate structures that were not intended for reading