Anomalous Cerebellar Anatomy in Chinese Children with Dyslexia.

Ying-Hui Yang,Yi-Wei Zhang,Bao-Guo Chen,Hong-Yan Bi,Yang Yang

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00324

Abstract

The cerebellar deficit hypothesis for developmental dyslexia claims that cerebellar dysfunction causes the failures in the acquisition of visuomotor skills and automatic reading and writing skills. In people with dyslexia in the alphabetic languages, the abnormal activation and structure of the right or bilateral cerebellar lobes have been identified. Using a typical implicit motor learning task, however, one neuroimaging study demonstrated the left cerebellar dysfunction in Chinese children with dyslexia. In the present study, using voxel-based morphometry, we found decreased gray matter volume in the left cerebellum in Chinese children with dyslexia relative to age-matched controls. The positive correlation between reading performance and regional gray matter volume suggests that the abnormal structure in the left cerebellum is responsible for reading disability in Chinese children with dyslexia.

Highlights

Developmental dyslexia (DD) is characterized by an unexpected difficulty in reading, which is not explained by intellectual impairment, sensory deficits, lack of adequate schooling opportunities, or neurological illness
The results indicated that Chinese children with dyslexia had significantly higher activity in the left cerebellum compared with age-matched normal children (Yang et al, 2013)
voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analysis revealed decreased gray matter volume in more widespread regions in children with dyslexia compared to controls, including the left superior temporal region (BA 38), left lateral orbitofrontal cortex (LOFC; BA 47), left middle frontal gyrus (MFG) (BA 9), left postcentral gyrus (BA 41), and some right brain regions, such as the right cerebellum, right superior frontal gyrus (BA 6), and right fusiform (BA 37)

Summary

Introduction

Developmental dyslexia (DD) is characterized by an unexpected difficulty in reading, which is not explained by intellectual impairment, sensory deficits, lack of adequate schooling opportunities, or neurological illness. It is a common developmental disorder affecting 5–18% of school-aged children (Snowling, 2000). The magnocellular deficit theory asserts that the reading problems derive from impaired sensory processing, caused by abnormal visual, auditory or tactile modalities (Stein and Walsh, 1997). As the cerebellum receives massive input from various magnocellular systems, it is proposed that the cerebellar deficit should be unified under the generally magnocellular theory of dyslexia (Stein, 2001). Compared with typically developing readers, children, and adults with dyslexia performed poorer in several tasks related to cerebellar

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