A block in the brain wiring could be the possible reason that makes dyslexic individuals struggle to read properly, a new study claimed.
The findings in the US journal Science add to an ongoing debate over whether the inherited neurological disorder is caused by faulty brain wiring or the brain's inability to understand the interaction of sounds and symbols that form language.
Phonetic System may be the Cause of Dyslexia
According to a research published in the open access journal PLOS ONE , dyslexia may result from impairment of a different linguistic system.
Advertisement
Dyslexia is a learning disability that affects about 10 percent of the population and occurs among people of all economic and ethnic backgrounds.
The findings were based on brain scans of 23 people with dyslexia and 22 without, showing dyslexics understand the sound units fine but lack the brain connections to process them.
![Dyslexia’s Effect on Brain Differs With Gender]( "Dyslexia’s Effect on Brain Differs With Gender")
Dyslexia may affect different parts of the brain in males and females according to a new study.
"Quite to our surprise, and probably to the surprise of the broader dyslexia field, we found that phonetic representations are perfectly intact in adults with dyslexia," said researcher Bart Boets, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Leuven in Belgium.
Boets said his team's research counters the predominantly held opinion that somehow people with dyslexia have an inferior ability to recognize the distinct sounds of language.
Instead, they found impaired connections between the right and left auditory regions, where phonetic representations are processed, and Broca's region, where higher level phonological processing takes place.
"Our findings indicate that the speech sound representations themselves are intact, but a dysfunctional connection between frontal and temporal language areas impedes efficient access to the representations," said Boets.
Study subjects listened to a sequence of four partial words, followed by another sequence in which a consonant or vowel had been switched, such as ba-ba-ba-ba, da-da-da-da.
Then they were asked to identify what had changed.
The team used advanced functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques to measure the unique fingerprint of each sound in the brain, and found the quality of impressions was the same in normal readers and dyslexic people.
In other words, their brains were identifying the sounds and their changes just like normal readers. However, the dyslexic people took 50 percent longer to make their responses, according to Science.
Researcher Hans Op de Beeck likened the experiment to having his daughter call from the landline telephone at their house to say she was home from school. That, he could verify, but what was she doing at home? Was she doing her homework or playing a game? He could not know for sure.
With this experiment, researchers were able to see that "the regions containing phonetic representations in adult dyslexic readers are doing their homework, that's for sure."
Boets said he hopes the research could lead to better ways of improving the brain circuitry, perhaps through noninvasive brain stimulation techniques.
However, the findings were questioned by neuroscientist Michael Merzenich at the University of California, San Francisco.
Decades of "very extensive and compelling" evidence show that people with dyslexia process phonetic representations with lower fidelity than normal, he was quoted as telling Science.
"You can't just ignore this literature," he said.
The study was co-authored by experts at University College London, University of Oxford and ETH Zurich University in Switzerland.
Source: AFP
Dyslexia’s Effect on Brain Differs With Gender
Dyslexia may affect different parts of the brain in males and females according to a new study.
Advertisement
"Quite to our surprise, and probably to the surprise of the broader dyslexia field, we found that phonetic representations are perfectly intact in adults with dyslexia," said researcher Bart Boets, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Leuven in Belgium.
Boets said his team's research counters the predominantly held opinion that somehow people with dyslexia have an inferior ability to recognize the distinct sounds of language.
Instead, they found impaired connections between the right and left auditory regions, where phonetic representations are processed, and Broca's region, where higher level phonological processing takes place.
"Our findings indicate that the speech sound representations themselves are intact, but a dysfunctional connection between frontal and temporal language areas impedes efficient access to the representations," said Boets.
Study subjects listened to a sequence of four partial words, followed by another sequence in which a consonant or vowel had been switched, such as ba-ba-ba-ba, da-da-da-da.
Then they were asked to identify what had changed.
The team used advanced functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques to measure the unique fingerprint of each sound in the brain, and found the quality of impressions was the same in normal readers and dyslexic people.
In other words, their brains were identifying the sounds and their changes just like normal readers. However, the dyslexic people took 50 percent longer to make their responses, according to Science.
Researcher Hans Op de Beeck likened the experiment to having his daughter call from the landline telephone at their house to say she was home from school. That, he could verify, but what was she doing at home? Was she doing her homework or playing a game? He could not know for sure.
With this experiment, researchers were able to see that "the regions containing phonetic representations in adult dyslexic readers are doing their homework, that's for sure."
Boets said he hopes the research could lead to better ways of improving the brain circuitry, perhaps through noninvasive brain stimulation techniques.
However, the findings were questioned by neuroscientist Michael Merzenich at the University of California, San Francisco.
Decades of "very extensive and compelling" evidence show that people with dyslexia process phonetic representations with lower fidelity than normal, he was quoted as telling Science.
"You can't just ignore this literature," he said.
The study was co-authored by experts at University College London, University of Oxford and ETH Zurich University in Switzerland.
Source: AFP
Scientists Discover Genetic Origins of Dyslexia and Language Impairment
Genetic variants that can predispose children to dyslexia and language impairment, increasing the likelihood of earlier diagnosis and more effective interventions have been discovered by researchers.
Advertisement
Advertisement
|
Advertisement
Recommended Readings
Latest Child Health News
Children with amblyopia or lazy eye who underwent digital vision training, showed no appreciable improvement in their eyesight.
In 2022, over 20% of children worldwide lacked adequate calories for growth, with 45+ million showing wasting (underweight for height).
After PCV7 licensure, pneumococcal infection rates in children aged 5+ with sickle cell disease significantly decreased.
Breast milk concentration of certain key proteins indicates abundance of healthy bacteria in babies' guts.
Compared to young children who grow up in rural areas, city kids are more prone to suffer respiratory infections due to environmental factors.
