Brain Correlates of Non-Symbolic Numerosity Estimation in Low and High Mathematical Ability Children

Yulia Kovas,Vincent Giampietro,Gareth J Barker,Robert Plomin,Francesca G E Happé,Essi Viding,Michael Brammer,Virginia Ng,Sheng He

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0004587

Abstract

Previous studies have implicated several brain areas as subserving numerical approximation. Most studies have examined brain correlates of adult numerical approximation and have not considered individual differences in mathematical ability. The present study examined non-symbolic numerical approximation in two groups of 10-year-olds: Children with low and high mathematical ability. The aims of this study were to investigate the brain mechanisms associated with approximate numerosity in children and to assess whether individual differences in mathematical ability are associated with differential brain correlates during the approximation task. The results suggest that, similarly to adults, multiple and distributed brain areas are involved in approximation in children. Despite equal behavioral performance, there were differences in the brain activation patterns between low and high mathematical ability groups during the approximation task. This suggests that individual differences in mathematical ability are reflected in differential brain response during approximation.

Highlights

Several brain regions show increased brain activation during numerical approximation tasks when compared to control tasks
Several studies, using different fMRI paradigms to compare activation between numerical activity and control tasks have replicated the involvement of horizontal segment of the intraparietal sulcus (hIPS) in both symbolic and non-symbolic numerical judgments [4]
Control children in this study showed the same pattern of activation as the children with developmental dyscalculia (DD), and showed additional bilateral parietal activation foci in the hIPS

Summary

Introduction

Several brain regions show increased brain activation during numerical approximation tasks when compared to control tasks These include intraparietal sulcus, inferior and superior frontal gyri, as well as other co-ordinates within the precentral, dorsolateral and superior prefrontal regions[1,2]. The authors concluded that these results support the idea that symbols acquire meaning by linking neural populations coding symbol shapes to those holding nonsymbolic representations of quantities. They suggested that it is likely that symbolic and concrete depictions of number are linked together in the adult human brain in the form of notationindependent assemblies of neurons coding for number at a purely conceptual level (cardinality)

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