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Arcuate fasciculus and pre-reading language development in children with prenatal alcohol exposure
Curtis Ostertag1,2, Jess E Reynolds2,3,4, Preeti Kar1,2
1Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada.
Insights
Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) alters white matter development in the arcuate fasciculus (AF), impacting pre-reading language skills in children. These findings highlight critical brain-language connections affected by PAE.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Pediatrics
Background:
- Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) is a leading cause of preventable birth defects, causing neurodevelopmental challenges.
- Altered white matter development, particularly in language pathways like the arcuate fasciculus (AF), is a known consequence of PAE.
- The relationship between AF development and pre-reading language skills in children with PAE requires further investigation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the association between the development of the arcuate fasciculus (AF) and pre-reading language abilities in young children with prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE).
- To compare white matter microstructure development in the AF between children with PAE and unexposed controls.
- To examine how PAE influences the relationship between AF microstructure and language skills.
Main Methods:
- Longitudinal diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) was used to assess white matter microstructure (fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity) in the left and right AF.
- Pre-reading language abilities were measured using phonological processing (PP) and speeded naming (SN) scores.
- Linear mixed effects models analyzed the relationships between diffusion metrics, age, group, sex, and language outcomes.
Main Results:
- Children with PAE exhibited significantly lower phonological processing and speeded naming scores compared to controls.
- Significant age-by-group interactions were observed in the right AF for fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity.
- Altered white matter microstructure in the AF was associated with poorer pre-reading language skills in children with PAE, resembling patterns seen in younger typically developing children.
Conclusions:
- Children with PAE demonstrate altered developmental trajectories of the arcuate fasciculus (AF) compared to unexposed peers.
- These developmental alterations in the AF are linked to functional language outcomes, specifically pre-reading skills.
- The study supports the hypothesis that disrupted AF development contributes to neurodevelopmental challenges in children affected by prenatal alcohol exposure.
Introduction:
Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) contributes to widespread neurodevelopmental challenges, including reading, and has been associated with altered white matter. Here, we aimed to investigate whether arcuate fasciculus (AF) development is associated with pre-reading language skills in young children with PAE.
Methods:
A total of 51 children with confirmed PAE (25 males; 5.6 ± 1.1 years) and 116 unexposed controls (57 males; 4.6 ± 1.2 years) underwent longitudinal diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), for a total of 111 scans from participants with PAE and 381 scans in the unexposed control group. We delineated the left and right AF and extracted mean fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD). Pre-reading language ability was assessed using age-standardized phonological processing (PP) and speeded naming (SN) scores of the NEPSY-II. Linear mixed effects models were run to determine the relationship between diffusion metrics and age, group, sex, and age-by-group interactions, with subject modeled as a random factor. A secondary mixed effect model analysis assessed the influence of white matter microstructure and PAE on pre-reading language ability using diffusion metric-by-age-by-group interactions, with 51 age- and sex-matched unexposed controls.
Results:
Phonological processing (PP) and SN scores were significantly lower in the PAE group (p < 0.001). In the right AF, there were significant age-by-group interactions for FA (p < 0.001) and MD (p = 0.0173). In the left AF, there was a nominally significant age-by-group interaction for MD that failed to survive correction (p = 0.0418). For the pre-reading analysis, a significant diffusion-by-age-by-group interaction was found for left FA (p = 0.0029) in predicting SN scores, and for the right FA (p = 0.00691) in predicting PP scores.
Discussion:
Children with PAE showed altered developmental trajectories for the AF, compared with unexposed controls. Children with PAE, regardless of age, showed altered brain-language relationships that resembled those seen in younger typically developing children. Our findings support the contention that altered developmental trajectories in the AF may be associated with functional outcomes in young children with PAE.
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