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Quantitative Assessment of Cortical Auditory-tactile Processing in Children with Disabilities
Published on: January 29, 2014
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Morphometry and functional connectivity of auditory cortex in school-age children with profound language
Annika Carola Linke1, Dominika Slušná2, Jiwandeep Singh Kohli1
1Brain Development Imaging Laboratories, Department of Psychology, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USA.
Brain and Cognition
|November 27, 2021
Summary
Children with severe neurodevelopmental conditions show reduced brain connectivity in language areas. Higher language skills correlate with better intrahemispheric connectivity, suggesting potential neural markers for language deficits.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Clinical Linguistics
Background:
- Neurodevelopmental conditions often lead to severe language impairments.
- Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) evidence on these deficits is scarce.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate functional connectivity (FC) patterns in the auditory language cortex of individuals with diverse neurodevelopmental conditions.
- To correlate individual language profiles with underlying FC patterns.
Main Methods:
- fMRI scans using a consistent paradigm across five cases: Coffin-Siris syndrome, Landau-Kleffner syndrome, Fragile-X syndrome, idiopathic intellectual disability, and autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
- Comparison of FC patterns against a typically developing (TD) group and a verbal ASD group (N=110).
Main Results:
- All studied cases exhibited interhemispheric FC below two standard deviations of the TD mean.
- Higher language scores correlated with increased intrahemispheric FC within auditory language regions and enhanced FC during language tasks.
- All cases showed increased FC for forward versus reversed speech in temporal gyri.
Conclusions:
- Reduced interhemispheric FC is a potential neural marker across heterogeneous neurodevelopmental conditions with severe language deficits.
- Intrahemispheric FC and task-related activation patterns may reflect varying degrees of language capacity.
- Specific FC anomalies, like reduced myelin or cortical thickness, may be linked to etiological factors.
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