TY - JOUR
T1 - Altered brain activity for phonological manipulation in dyslexic Japanese children
AU - Kita, Yosuke
AU - Yamamoto, Hisako
AU - Oba, Kentaro
AU - Terasawa, Yuri
AU - Moriguchi, Yoshiya
AU - Uchiyama, Hitoshi
AU - Seki, Ayumi
AU - Koeda, Tatsuya
AU - Inagaki, Masumi
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported in part by an Intramural Research Grant (22-6; Clinical Research for Diagnostic and Therapeutic Innovations in Developmental Disorders) for Neurological and Psychiatric Disorders of NCNP and a Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Fellows (23-10284 to Y.K.).
PY - 2013/12
Y1 - 2013/12
N2 - Because of unique linguistic characteristics, the prevalence rate of developmental dyslexia is relatively low in the Japanese language. Paradoxically, Japanese children have serious difficulty analysing phonological processes when they have dyslexia. Neurobiological deficits in Japanese dyslexia remain unclear and need to be identified, and may lead to better understanding of the commonality and diversity in the disorder among different linguistic systems. The present study investigated brain activity that underlies deficits in phonological awareness in Japanese dyslexic children using functional magnetic resonance imaging. We developed and conducted a phonological manipulation task to extract phonological processing skills and to minimize the influence of auditory working memory on healthy adults, typically developing children, and dyslexic children. Current experiments revealed that several brain regions participated in manipulating the phonological information including left inferior and middle frontal gyrus, left superior temporal gyrus, and bilateral basal ganglia. Moreover, dyslexic children showed altered activity in two brain regions. They showed hyperactivity in the basal ganglia compared with the two other groups, which reflects inefficient phonological processing. Hypoactivity in the left superior temporal gyrus was also found, suggesting difficulty in composing and processing phonological information. The altered brain activity shares similarity with those of dyslexic children in countries speaking alphabetical languages, but disparity also occurs between these two populations. These are initial findings concerning the neurobiological impairments in dyslexic Japanese children.
AB - Because of unique linguistic characteristics, the prevalence rate of developmental dyslexia is relatively low in the Japanese language. Paradoxically, Japanese children have serious difficulty analysing phonological processes when they have dyslexia. Neurobiological deficits in Japanese dyslexia remain unclear and need to be identified, and may lead to better understanding of the commonality and diversity in the disorder among different linguistic systems. The present study investigated brain activity that underlies deficits in phonological awareness in Japanese dyslexic children using functional magnetic resonance imaging. We developed and conducted a phonological manipulation task to extract phonological processing skills and to minimize the influence of auditory working memory on healthy adults, typically developing children, and dyslexic children. Current experiments revealed that several brain regions participated in manipulating the phonological information including left inferior and middle frontal gyrus, left superior temporal gyrus, and bilateral basal ganglia. Moreover, dyslexic children showed altered activity in two brain regions. They showed hyperactivity in the basal ganglia compared with the two other groups, which reflects inefficient phonological processing. Hypoactivity in the left superior temporal gyrus was also found, suggesting difficulty in composing and processing phonological information. The altered brain activity shares similarity with those of dyslexic children in countries speaking alphabetical languages, but disparity also occurs between these two populations. These are initial findings concerning the neurobiological impairments in dyslexic Japanese children.
KW - Basal ganglia
KW - Developmental dyslexia
KW - Functional magnetic resonance imaging
KW - Japanese language
KW - Phonological awareness
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84890775508&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84890775508&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/brain/awt248
DO - 10.1093/brain/awt248
M3 - Article
C2 - 24052613
AN - SCOPUS:84890775508
VL - 136
SP - 3696
EP - 3708
JO - Brain
JF - Brain
SN - 0006-8950
IS - 12
ER -