Skip to main content
Key Specialties
Cardiology Diabetology Endocrinology Gastroenterology Geriatrics and Gerontology Gynecology and Obstetrics Hematology Infectious Disease Internal Medicine Nephrology Neurology Oncology Pediatrics Respiratory Medicine Rheumatology Surgery
Congress Coverage
2024 ACC Congress 2023 ESMO Congress 2023 EASD Congress 2023 ERS Congress 2023 ESC Congress
Clinical Collections
Advances in Alzheimer’s

Keynote webinar | Spotlight on medication adherence

LIVE: Thursday 27th June 2024, 18:00-19:30 (CEST)
Join our expert panel to discover why you need to understand the drivers of non-adherence in your patients, and how you can optimize medication adherence in your clinics to drastically improve patient outcomes.
ADVANCED SEARCH
Log in
Top
The Cerebellum
Published in: The Cerebellum 2/2017

01-04-2017 | Original Paper

Dyslexic Children Show Atypical Cerebellar Activation and Cerebro-Cerebellar Functional Connectivity in Orthographic and Phonological Processing

Authors: Xiaoxia Feng, Le Li, Manli Zhang, Xiujie Yang, Mengyu Tian, Weiyi Xie, Yao Lu, Li Liu, Nathalie N. Bélanger, Xiangzhi Meng, Guosheng Ding

Published in: The Cerebellum | Issue 2/2017

Login to get access

Abstract

Previous neuroimaging studies have found atypical cerebellar activation in individuals with dyslexia in either motor-related tasks or language tasks. However, studies investigating atypical cerebellar activation in individuals with dyslexia have mostly used tasks tapping phonological processing. A question that is yet unanswered is whether the cerebellum in individuals with dyslexia functions properly during orthographic processing of words, as growing evidence shows that the cerebellum is also involved in visual and spatial processing. Here, we investigated cerebellar activation and cerebro-cerebellar functional connectivity during word processing in dyslexic readers and typically developing readers using tasks that tap orthographic and phonological codes. In children with dyslexia, we observed an abnormally higher engagement of the bilateral cerebellum for the orthographic task, which was negatively correlated with literacy measures. The greater the reading impairment was for young dyslexic readers, the stronger the cerebellar activation was. This suggests a compensatory role of the cerebellum in reading for children with dyslexia. In addition, a tendency for higher cerebellar activation in dyslexic readers was found in the phonological task. Moreover, the functional connectivity was stronger for dyslexic readers relative to typically developing readers between the lobule VI of the right cerebellum and the left fusiform gyrus during the orthographic task and between the lobule VI of the left cerebellum and the left supramarginal gyrus during the phonological task. This pattern of results suggests that the cerebellum compensates for reading impairment through the connections with specific brain regions responsible for the ongoing reading task. These findings enhance our understanding of the cerebellum’s involvement in reading and reading impairment.
Appendix
Available only for authorised users
Literature
1.
Lyon GR, Shaywitz SE, Shaywitz BA. A definition of dyslexia. Annals of dyslexia. 2003;53(1):1–14.CrossRef
2.
Simos PG, Breier JI, Fletcher JM, Foorman BR, Bergman E, Fishbeck K, et al. Brain activation profiles in dyslexic children during non-word reading: a magnetic source imaging study. Neurosci Lett. 2000;290(1):61–5.CrossRefPubMed
3.
Shaywitz BA, Shaywitz SE, Pugh KR, Mencl WE, Fulbright RK, Skudlarski P, et al. Disruption of posterior brain systems for reading in children with developmental dyslexia. Biol Psychiat. 2002;52(2):101–10.CrossRefPubMed
4.
Richlan F, Kronbichler M, Wimmer H. Functional abnormalities in the dyslexic brain: a quantitative meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies. Hum Brain Mapp. 2009;30(10):3299–308.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral
5.
Raschle NM, Zuk J, Gaab N. Functional characteristics of developmental dyslexia in left-hemispheric posterior brain regions predate reading onset. P Natl Acad Sci USA. 2012;109(6):2156–61.CrossRef
6.
Cohen L, Jobert A, Le Bihan D, Dehaene S. Distinct unimodal and multimodal regions for word processing in the left temporal cortex. NeuroImage. 2004;23(4):1256–70.CrossRefPubMed
7.
Schlaggar BL, McCandliss BD. Development of neural systems for reading. Annu Rev Neurosci. 2007;30:475–503.CrossRefPubMed
8.
Vicari S, Marotta L, Menghini D, Molinari M, Petrosini L. Implicit learning deficit in children with developmental dyslexia. Neuropsychologia. 2003;41(1):108–14.CrossRefPubMed
9.
Kronbichler M, Wimmer H, Staffen W, Hutzler F, Mair A, Ladurner G. Developmental dyslexia: gray matter abnormalities in the occipitotemporal cortex. Hum Brain Mapp. 2008;29(5):613–25.CrossRefPubMed
10.
Baillieux H, Vandervliet EJM, Manto M, Parizel PM, De Deyn PP, Marien P. Developmental dyslexia and widespread activation across the cerebellar hemispheres. Brain Lang. 2009;108(2):122–32.CrossRefPubMed
11.
Norton ES, Black JM, Stanley LM, Tanaka H, Gabrieli JDE, Sawyer C, et al. Functional neuroanatomical evidence for the double-deficit hypothesis of developmental dyslexia. Neuropsychologia. 2014;61:235–46.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral
12.
Eckert MA, Leonard CM, Richards TL, Aylward EH, Thomson J, Berninger VW. Anatomical correlates of dyslexia: frontal and cerebellar findings. Brain. 2003;126:482–94.CrossRefPubMed
13.
Eckert M. Neuroanatomical markers for dyslexia: a review of dyslexia structural imaging studies. Neuroscientist. 2004;10(4):362–71.CrossRefPubMed
14.
Fernandez VG, Stuebing K, Juranek J, Fletcher JM. Volumetric analysis of regional variability in the cerebellum of children with dyslexia. Cerebellum. 2013;12(6):906–15.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral
15.
Yang YH, Yang Y, Chen BG, Zhang YW, Bi HY. Anomalous cerebellar anatomy in Chinese children with dyslexia. Front Psychol. 2016;7:324.PubMedPubMedCentral
16.
Leonard CM, Eckert MA, Lombardino LJ, Oakland T, Kranzler J, Mohr CM, et al. Anatomical risk factors for phonological dyslexia. Cereb Cortex. 2001;11(2):148–57.CrossRefPubMed
17.
Rae C, Harasty JA, Dzendrowskyj TE, Talcott JB, Simpson JM, Blamire AM, et al. Cerebellar morphology in developmental dyslexia. Neuropsychologia. 2002;40(8):1285–92.CrossRefPubMed
18.
Linkersdorfer J, Lonnemann J, Lindberg S, Hasselhorn M, Fiebach CJ. Grey matter alterations co-localize with functional abnormalities in developmental dyslexia: an ALE meta-analysis. PLoS One. 2012;7(8):e43122.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral
19.
Stoodley CJ. Distinct regions of the cerebellum show gray matter decreases in autism, ADHD, and developmental dyslexia. Front Syst Neurosci. 2014;8.
20.
Pernet CR, Poline JB, Demonet JF, Rousselet GA. Brain classification reveals the right cerebellum as the best biomarker of dyslexia. BMC Neurosci. 2009;10.
21.
Yang Y, Bi H-Y, Long Z-Y, Tao S. Evidence for cerebellar dysfunction in Chinese children with developmental dyslexia: an fMRI study. Int J Neurosci. 2013;123(5):300–10.CrossRefPubMed
22.
Berry EL, Jenkins IH, Nicolson RI, Fawcett AJ, Dean P, Brooks DJ. Cerebellar function is impaired in dyslexia: a PET activation study. Neurology. 1998;50(4):A3–A.
23.
Nicolson RI, Fawcett AJ, Berry EL, Jenkins IH, Dean P, Brooks DJ. Association of abnormal cerebellar activation with motor learning difficulties in dyslexic adults. Lancet. 1999;353(9165):1662–7.CrossRefPubMed
24.
Fawcett AJ, Nicolson RI. Persistent deficits in motor skill of children with dyslexia. J Motor Behav. 1995;27(3):235–40.CrossRef
25.
Nicolson RI, Fawcett AJ. Comparison of deficits in cognitive and motor skills among children with dyslexia. Annals of Dyslexia. 1994;44(1):147–64.CrossRefPubMed
26.
Yang Y, Hong-Yan B. Unilateral implicit motor learning deficit in developmental dyslexia. Int J Psychol. 2011;46(1):1–8.CrossRefPubMed
27.
Barth AE, Denton CA, Stuebing KK, Fletcher JM, Cirino PT, Francis DJ, et al. A test of the cerebellar hypothesis of dyslexia in adequate and inadequate responders to reading intervention. J Int Neuropsych Soc. 2010;16(3):526–36.CrossRef
28.
Irannejad S, Savage R. Is a cerebellar deficit the underlying cause of reading disabilities? Annals of Dyslexia. 2011;62(1):22–52.CrossRefPubMed
29.
Beaton A, Marien P. Language, cognition and the cerebellum: grappling with an enigma. Cortex. 2010;46(7):811–20.CrossRefPubMed
30.
Murdoch BE. The cerebellum and language: historical perspective and review. Cortex. 2010;46(7):858–68.CrossRefPubMed
31.
Booth JR, Bebko G, Burman DD, Bitan T. Children with reading disorder show modality independent brain abnormalities during semantic tasks. Neuropsychologia. 2007;45(4):775–83.CrossRefPubMed
32.
Stanberry LI, Richards TL, Berninger VW, Nandy RR, Aylward EH, Maravilla KR, et al. Low-frequency signal changes reflect differences in functional connectivity between good readers and dyslexics during continuous phoneme mapping. Magn Reson Imaging. 2006;24(3):217–29.CrossRefPubMed
33.
34.
Szwed M, Cohen L, Qiao E, Dehaene S. The role of invariant line junctions in object and visual word recognition. Vis Res. 2009;49(7):718–25.CrossRefPubMed
35.
Fink GR, Marshall JC, Shah NJ, Weiss PH, Halligan PW, Grosse-Ruyken M, et al. Line bisection judgments implicate right parietal cortex and cerebellum as assessed by fMRI. Neurology. 2000;54(6):1324–31.CrossRefPubMed
36.
Deluca C, Golzar A, Santandrea E, Lo Gerfo E, Estocinova J, Moretto G, et al. The cerebellum and visual perceptual learning: evidence from a motion extrapolation task. Cortex. 2014;58:52–71.CrossRefPubMed
37.
Gogos A, Gavrilescu M, Davison S, Searle K, Adams J, Rossell SL, et al. Greater superior than inferior parietal lobule activation with increasing rotation angle during mental rotation: an fMRI study. Neuropsychologia. 2010;48(2):529–35.CrossRefPubMed
38.
Gross-Tsur V, Ben-Bashat D, Shalev RS, Levav M, Sira LB. Evidence of a developmental cerebello-cerebral disorder. Neuropsychologia. 2006;44(12):2569–72.CrossRefPubMed
39.
Scott RB, Stoodley CJ, Anslow P, Paul C, Stein JF, Sugden EM, et al. Lateralized cognitive deficits in children following cerebellar lesions. Dev Med Child Neurol. 2001;43(10):685–91.CrossRefPubMed
40.
Diedrichsen J, Balsters JH, Flavell J, Cussans E, Ramnani N. A probabilistic MR atlas of the human cerebellum. NeuroImage. 2009;46(1):39–46.CrossRefPubMed
41.
Oldfield RC. The assessment and analysis of handedness: the Edinburgh inventory. Neuropsychologia. 1971;9(1):97–113.CrossRefPubMed
42.
Raven J, Raven JC, Court JH Manual for Raven’s Progressive Matrices and vocabulary scales: Oxford Psychologists Press.
43.
Conners C. Conners’ rating scales-revised. Multi-Health Systems. Inc: North Tonawanda, New York; 1997.
44.
Wang X, Tao B. Chinese character recognition test battery and assessment scale for primary school children. Shanghai: Shanghai Education Press; 1993.
45.
Shu H, Peng H, McBride-Chang C. Phonological awareness in young Chinese children. Dev Sci. 2008;11(1):171–81.CrossRefPubMed
46.
Zhou W, Xia Z, Bi Y, Shu H. Altered connectivity of the dorsal and ventral visual regions in dyslexic children: a resting-state fMRI study. Front Hum Neurosci. 2015;9:495.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral
47.
Cui Z, Xia Z, Su M, Shu H, Gong G. Disrupted white matter connectivity underlying developmental dyslexia: a machine learning approach. Hum Brain Mapp. 2016;37(4):1443–58.CrossRefPubMed
48.
Liu L, Wang W, You W, Li Y, Awati N, Zhao X, et al. Similar alterations in brain function for phonological and semantic processing to visual characters in Chinese dyslexia. Neuropsychologia. 2012;50(9):2224–32.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral
49.
Shu H, Chen X, Anderson RC, Wu NN, Xuan Y. Properties of school Chinese: implications for learning to read. Child Dev. 2003;74(1):27–47.CrossRefPubMed
50.
You H, Gaab N, Wei N, Cheng-Lai A, Wang Z, Jian J, et al. Neural deficits in second language reading: fMRI evidence from Chinese children with English reading impairment. NeuroImage. 2011;57(3):760–70.CrossRefPubMed
51.
Frederickson N, Frith, U, Reason R Phonological Assessment Battery (Manual and Test Materials). 1997.
52.
Mirsky AF, Anthony BJ, Duncan CC, Ahearn MB, Kellam SG. Analysis of the elements of attention: a neuropsychological approach. Neuropsychol Rev. 1991;2(2):109–45.CrossRefPubMed
53.
Temple E, Poldrack RA, Salidis J, Deutsch GK, Tallal P, Merzenich MM, et al. Disrupted neural responses to phonological and orthographic processing in dyslexic children: an fMRI study. Neuroreport. 2001;12(2):299–307.CrossRefPubMed
54.
Siok WT, Spinks JA, Jin Z, Tan LH. Developmental dyslexia is characterized by the co-existence of visuospatial and phonological disorders in Chinese children. Curr Biol. 2009;19(19):R890–2.CrossRefPubMed
55.
Hoeft F, Meyler A, Hernandez A, Juel C, Taylor-Hill H, Martindale JL, et al. Functional and morphometric brain dissociation between dyslexia and reading ability. P Natl Acad Sci USA. 2007;104(10):4234–9.CrossRef
56.
Fulbright RK, Jenner AR, Mencl WE, Pugh KR, Shaywitz BA, Shaywitz SE, et al. The cerebellum’s role in reading: a functional MR imaging study. Am J Neuroradiol. 1999;20(10):1925–30.PubMed
57.
Dehaene S, Pegado F, Braga LW, Ventura P, Nunes G, Jobert A, et al. How learning to read changes the cortical networks for vision and language. Science. 2010;330(6009):1359–64.CrossRefPubMed
58.
Diedrichsen J. A spatially unbiased atlas template of the human cerebellum. NeuroImage. 2006;33(1):127–38.CrossRefPubMed
59.
Houde O, Rossi S, Lubin A, Joliot M. Mapping numerical processing, reading, and executive functions in the developing brain: an fMRI meta-analysis of 52 studies including 842 children. Dev Sci. 2010;13(6):876–85.CrossRefPubMed
60.
Bolger DJ, Perfetti CA, Schneider W. Cross-cultural effect on the brain revisited: universal structures plus writing system variation. Hum Brain Mapp. 2005;25(1):92–104.CrossRefPubMed
61.
Koyama MS, Di Martino A, Zuo XN, Kelly C, Mennes M, Jutagir DR, et al. Resting-state functional connectivity indexes reading competence in children and adults. J Neurosci. 2011;31(23):8617–24.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral
62.
Koyama MS, Di Martino A, Kelly C, Jutagir DR, Sunshine J, Schwartz SJ, et al. Cortical signatures of dyslexia and remediation: an intrinsic functional connectivity approach. PLoS One. 2013;8(2):e55454.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral
63.
Snowling M. Dyslexia as a phonological deficit: evidence and implications. Child Psychology & Psychiatry Review. 2003;3(1):4–11.CrossRef
64.
Nicolson RI, Fawcett AJ, Dean P. Developmental dyslexia: the cerebellar deficit hypothesis. Trends Neurosci. 2001;24(9):508–11.CrossRefPubMed
65.
Menghini D, Hagberg GE, Caltagirone C, Petrosini L, Vicari S. Implicit learning deficits in dyslexic adults: an fMRI study. NeuroImage. 2006;33(4):1218–26.CrossRefPubMed
66.
Richlan F, Sturm D, Schurz M, Kronbichler M, Ladurner G, Wimmer H. A common left occipito-temporal dysfunction in developmental dyslexia and acquired letter-by-letter reading? PLoS One. 2010;5(8).
67.
D’Mello AM, Stoodley CJ. Cerebro-cerebellar circuits in autism spectrum disorder. Front Neurosci-Switz. 2015;9.
68.
Marien P, Ackermann H, Adamaszek M, Barwood CHS, Beaton A, Desmond J, et al. Consensus paper: language and the cerebellum: an ongoing enigma. Cerebellum. 2014;13(3):386–410.PubMedPubMedCentral
69.
Fernandez VG, Juranek J, Romanowska-Pawliczek A, Stuebing K, Williams VJ, Fletcher JM. White matter integrity of cerebellar-cortical tracts in reading impaired children: A probabilistic tractography study. Brain and Language. 2015.
70.
Wu CY, Ho MHR, Chen SHA. A meta-analysis of fMRI studies on Chinese orthographic, phonological, and semantic processing. NeuroImage. 2012;63(1):381–91.CrossRefPubMed
71.
Pinel P, Lalanne C, Bourgeron T, Fauchereau F, Poupon C, Artiges E, et al. Genetic and environmental influences on the visual word form and fusiform face areas. Cereb Cortex. 2015;25(9):2478–93.CrossRefPubMed
72.
Ma LF, Jiang Y, Bai JE, Gong QY, Liu HC, Chen HC, et al. Robust and task-independent spatial profile of the visual word form activation in fusiform cortex. PLoS One. 2011;6(10).
73.
Wang JJ, Bi HY, Gao LQ, Wydell TN. The visual magnocellular pathway in Chinese-speaking children with developmental dyslexia. Neuropsychologia. 2010;48(12):3627–33.CrossRefPubMed
74.
Hu W, Lee HL, Zhang Q, Liu T, Geng LB, Seghier ML, et al. Developmental dyslexia in Chinese and English populations: dissociating the effect of dyslexia from language differences. Brain. 2010;133(Pt 6):1694–706.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral
75.
Metadata
Title
Dyslexic Children Show Atypical Cerebellar Activation and Cerebro-Cerebellar Functional Connectivity in Orthographic and Phonological Processing
Authors
Xiaoxia Feng
Le Li
Manli Zhang
Xiujie Yang
Mengyu Tian
Weiyi Xie
Yao Lu
Li Liu
Nathalie N. Bélanger
Xiangzhi Meng
Guosheng Ding
Publication date
01-04-2017
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
The Cerebellum / Issue 2/2017
Print ISSN: 1473-4222
Electronic ISSN: 1473-4230
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12311-016-0829-2

Other articles of this Issue 2/2017

The Cerebellum 2/2017 Go to the issue

Original Paper

Altered Cerebellar Activity in Visceral Pain-Related Fear Conditioning in Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Original Paper

Exploration and Identification of Cortico-Cerebellar-Brainstem Closed Loop During a Motivational-Motor Task: an fMRI Study

Original Paper

Gray Matter Atrophy in the Cerebellum—Evidence of Increased Vulnerability of the Crus and Vermis with Advancing Age

Short Report

Corticomuscular Coherence: a Novel Tool to Assess the Pyramidal Tract Dysfunction in Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 2

Short Report

SPG7 and Impaired Emotional Communication

Short Report

Late-Onset Friedreich’s Ataxia (LOFA) Mimicking Charcot–Marie–Tooth Disease Type 2: What Is Similar and What Is Different?