Study Sheds Light on Brain Function in Dyslexia

Can you give us a better link on this article please, we were unable to get to it. We are very interested in it. Thanks Julie

Stupid wraparound text! What you have to do is clip and paste both halves in the address box being careful not to leave a space in between. Here is the article in text form:

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A region of the brain that helps new readers to sound out words appears to be impaired in children with dyslexia, new study findings suggest.

People with dyslexia, despite normal intelligence and vision, have difficulty reading, writing and spelling. The exact cause of the learning disorder is uncertain, although a person’s genes are thought to play a role.

“Many adults fail to realize how difficult it is to learn how to read,” co-author Dr. G. Reid Lyon of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Bethesda, Maryland, told Reuters Health in an interview.

“It involves a very abstract concept—that the words a person hears are composed of smaller sounds,” added Reid. The ability to identify sounds and associate them with letters or words is critical for reading, he explained.

In an effort to better understand the process, Lyon and colleagues evaluated brain scans of 70 dyslexic children and 74 non-impaired readers between the ages of 7 and 18. All of the children underwent a type of brain scan called functional MRI while performing various reading and sound comprehension tasks, according to the report published in the July issue of the journal Biological Psychiatry.

While normal readers were shown to have activation in the back of their brain, the dyslexic children had “significantly reduced activation in the backs of their brains,” said Lyon.

The brain scans of dyslexic children showed more activity in the front and side regions of the brain.

“These findings provide neurobiological evidence for an underlying disruption in the neural systems for reading in children with dyslexia and indicate that it is evident at a young age,” the authors conclude.

SOURCE: Biological Psychiatry 2002;52:101-110.

HI Dad…thanks as usual for sharing!
What about the comments on this type of study (it’s not that new) that say ‘what if READING itself causes the brain activity and therefore the MRI is simply showing differences in brain activity between READERS and NON-REaders?’ Any opinions out there? Has anyone ever seen any similar studies that compare ‘remediated’ dyslexics to non-dyslexics?

I remember my Prof in Intro Psych hammering into our heads that ‘correlation is NOT causation’ and I personally don’t think this study PROVEs what it says it does…there may be differences in brain activity, but reading IS a complex activity and it makes sense to me that there is MORE to this than the surface observation…

I too would like to see a study that shows dyslexics’ brain scans before and after remediation.

Lets all not forget brain plasiticity. If the brain can change, I am guessing so can the scan.

Lindamood bell did a study that was highlighted on the PBS Special On the Brain. A dyslexic boy was scanned before treatment and after. There was brain activity where there hadn’t been before. The program used to be available online. Don’t know if it still is.

nt