Disentangling influences of dyslexia, development, and reading experience on effective brain connectivity in children

Sarah V Di Pietro; David Willinger; Nada Frei; Christina Lutz; Seline Coraj; Chiara Schneider; Philipp Stämpfli; Silvia Brem

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.119869

Disentangling influences of dyslexia, development, and reading experience on effective brain connectivity in children

Neuroimage. 2023 Mar:268:119869. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.119869. Epub 2023 Jan 10.

Authors

Sarah V Di Pietro¹, David Willinger², Nada Frei³, Christina Lutz³, Seline Coraj³, Chiara Schneider⁴, Philipp Stämpfli⁵, Silvia Brem⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital of Psychiatry Zurich, University of Zurich, Switzerland; Neuroscience Center Zurich, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, Switzerland; URPP Adaptive Brain Circuits in Development and Learning (AdaBD), University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
² Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital of Psychiatry Zurich, University of Zurich, Switzerland; Neuroscience Center Zurich, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, Switzerland; Department of Psychology and Psychodynamics, Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences, Krems an der Donau, Austria.
³ Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital of Psychiatry Zurich, University of Zurich, Switzerland; Neuroscience Center Zurich, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, Switzerland.
⁴ Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital of Psychiatry Zurich, University of Zurich, Switzerland.
⁵ MR-Center of the Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics and the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Psychiatric Hospital, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
⁶ Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital of Psychiatry Zurich, University of Zurich, Switzerland; Neuroscience Center Zurich, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, Switzerland; URPP Adaptive Brain Circuits in Development and Learning (AdaBD), University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland; MR-Center of the Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics and the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Psychiatric Hospital, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland. Electronic address: silvia.brem@uzh.ch.

PMID: 36639004
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.119869

Abstract

Altered brain connectivity between regions of the reading network has been associated with reading difficulties. However, it remains unclear whether connectivity differences between children with dyslexia (DYS) and those with typical reading skills (TR) are specific to reading impairments or to reading experience. In this functional MRI study, 132 children (M = 10.06 y, SD = 1.46) performed a phonological lexical decision task. We aimed to disentangle (1) disorder-specific from (2) experience-related differences in effective connectivity and to (3) characterize the development of DYS and TR. We applied dynamic causal modeling to age-matched (n_dys = 25, n_TR = 35) and reading-level-matched (n_dys = 25, n_TR = 22) groups. Developmental effects were assessed in beginning and advanced readers (TR: n_beg = 48, n_adv = 35, DYS: n_beg = 24, n_adv = 25). We show that altered feedback connectivity between the inferior parietal lobule and the visual word form area (VWFA) during print processing can be specifically attributed to reading impairments, because these alterations were found in DYS compared to both the age-matched and reading-level-matched TR. In contrast, feedforward connectivity from the VWFA to parietal and frontal regions characterized experience in TR and increased with age and reading skill. These directed connectivity findings pinpoint disorder-specific and experience-dependent alterations in the brain's reading network.

Keywords: Development; Developmental dyslexia; Dynamic causal modeling (DCM); Effective connectivity; Inferior parietal lobule; Reading network; Visual Word Forma Area (VWFA); fMRI.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Brain
Brain Mapping*
Child
Dyslexia* / diagnostic imaging
Humans
Linguistics
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Parietal Lobe