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Dementia & Neuropsychologia 2024This is the case report of a woman who started to write and read from right to left after anterior cerebral artery stroke, affecting the left supplementary motor area....
This is the case report of a woman who started to write and read from right to left after anterior cerebral artery stroke, affecting the left supplementary motor area. No cases were found in the literature with exactly the same characteristics. She has been able to read and write faster after rehabilitation approach at Sarah Network of Rehabilitation Hospitals, in the Belo Horizonte city unit, Brazil, despite the maintenance of the inversion. She returned to her previous activities in an adaptive way. It was discussed how the dysfunction in this cerebral area and its connections may disturb the reading strategy and direction.
PubMed: 38628560
DOI: 10.1590/1980-5764-DN-2023-0044 -
Cerebral Cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) Apr 2024Reading skills and developmental dyslexia, characterized by difficulties in developing reading skills, have been associated with brain anomalies within the language...
Reading skills and developmental dyslexia, characterized by difficulties in developing reading skills, have been associated with brain anomalies within the language network. Genetic factors contribute to developmental dyslexia risk, but the mechanisms by which these genes influence reading skills remain unclear. In this preregistered study (https://osf.io/7sehx), we explored if developmental dyslexia susceptibility genes DNAAF4, DCDC2, NRSN1, and KIAA0319 are associated with brain function in fluently reading adolescents and young adults. Functional MRI and task performance data were collected during tasks involving written and spoken sentence processing, and DNA sequence variants of developmental dyslexia susceptibility genes previously associated with brain structure anomalies were genotyped. The results revealed that variation in DNAAF4, DCDC2, and NRSN1 is associated with brain activity in key language regions: the left inferior frontal gyrus, middle temporal gyrus, and intraparietal sulcus. Furthermore, NRSN1 was associated with task performance, but KIAA0319 did not yield any significant associations. Our findings suggest that individuals with a genetic predisposition to developmental dyslexia may partly employ compensatory neural and behavioral mechanisms to maintain typical task performance. Our study highlights the relevance of these developmental dyslexia susceptibility genes in language-related brain function, even in individuals without developmental dyslexia, providing valuable insights into the genetic factors influencing language processing.
Topics: Adolescent; Humans; Young Adult; Brain; Dyslexia; Genotype; Microtubule-Associated Proteins; Nervous System Physiological Phenomena; Reading
PubMed: 38610086
DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhae144 -
Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Apr 2024Reading proficiency is crucial for academic, vocational, and economic success and has been closely linked to health outcomes. Unfortunately, in the United States, a...
Leveraging brain science for impactful advocacy and policymaking: The synergistic partnership between developmental cognitive neuroscientists and a parent-led grassroots movement to drive dyslexia prevention policy and legislation.
Reading proficiency is crucial for academic, vocational, and economic success and has been closely linked to health outcomes. Unfortunately, in the United States, a concerning 63% of fourth-grade children are reading below grade level, with approximately 7%-10% exhibiting a disability in word reading, developmental dyslexia. Research in developmental cognitive neuroscience indicates that individuals with dyslexia show functional and structural brain alterations in regions processing reading and reading-related information, with some of these differences emerging as early as preschool and even infancy. This suggests that some children start schooling with less optimal brain architecture for learning to read, emphasizing the need for preventative education practices. This article reviews educational policies impacting children with dyslexia and highlights a decentralized parent-led grassroots movement, Decoding Dyslexia, which centers the voices of those directly impacted by dyslexia. It utilizes civic engagement practices, advocacy and lobbying on local, federal, and social media platforms, and strong partnerships with scientists to drive systems-level change in educational practices, leading to dyslexia prevention legislation across the U.S. The ongoing partnership continues to address the profound gaps between scientific findings and policymaking to drive systems-level change for contemporary challenges in educational practices within a learning disabilities framework.
PubMed: 38608358
DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2024.101376 -
Cancer Treatment Reviews May 2024Angiosarcoma (AS) represents a rare and aggressive vascular sarcoma, posing distinct challenges in clinical management compared to other sarcomas. While the current...
Angiosarcoma (AS) represents a rare and aggressive vascular sarcoma, posing distinct challenges in clinical management compared to other sarcomas. While the current European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) clinical practice guidelines for sarcoma treatment are applicable to AS, its unique aggressiveness and diverse tumor presentations necessitate dedicated and detailed clinical recommendations, which are currently lacking. Notably, considerations regarding surgical extent, radiation therapy (RT), and neoadjuvant/adjuvant chemotherapy vary significantly in localized disease, depending on each different site of onset. Indeed, AS are one of the sarcoma types most sensitive to cytotoxic chemotherapy. Despite this, uncertainties persist regarding optimal management across different clinical presentations, highlighting the need for further investigation through clinical trials. The Italian Sarcoma Group (ISG) organized a consensus meeting on April 1st, 2023, in Castel San Pietro, Italy, bringing together Italian sarcoma experts from several disciplines and patient representatives from "Sofia nel Cuore Onlus" and the ISG patient advocacy working group. The objective was to develop specific clinical recommendations for managing localized AS within the existing framework of sarcoma clinical practice guidelines, accounting for potential practice variations among ISG institutions. The aim was to try to standardize and harmonize clinical practices, or at least highlight the open questions in the local management of the disease, to define the best evidence-based practice for the optimal approach of localized AS and generate the recommendations presented herein.
Topics: Humans; Consensus; Hemangiosarcoma; Italy; Practice Guidelines as Topic; Sarcoma
PubMed: 38604052
DOI: 10.1016/j.ctrv.2024.102722 -
Soa--ch'ongsonyon Chongsin Uihak =... Apr 2024This study aimed to identify the effectiveness of treatment programs for children with reading (RD) or mathematics disorders (MD). Structured treatment programs were...
OBJECTIVES
This study aimed to identify the effectiveness of treatment programs for children with reading (RD) or mathematics disorders (MD). Structured treatment programs were developed to improve phonological awareness and number sense among children and adolescents with RD or MD, respectively, and the effectiveness of the learning disorder treatment programs were evaluated.
METHODS
We used standardized, objective diagnostic, and evaluation tools not only to recruit participants with RD, MD, or comorbid attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, but also to assess the effectiveness of the treatments regarding both improved core neurocognitive deficits of RD or MD and academic achievement. Forty children with RD or MD received one-on-one treatments from therapists.
RESULTS
In the RD group, treatment effects were observed in all subtests. In the word and paragraph reading tests, the accuracy rates and fluency improved. The results of the phonological working memory test, word-sound correspondence test, and rapid automatic naming tests also improved. In the MD group, the accuracy rate and fluency on the arithmetic test improved. An increase in the accuracy rate in the size and distance comparison tests and a decrease in the error rate in the estimation test were also observed. However, there were no improvements in reaction time in these subtests.
CONCLUSION
Learning disorder treatment programs that focus on improving phonological awareness or number sense in children with RD or MD improved achievement, phonological awareness, and number sense.
PubMed: 38601103
DOI: 10.5765/jkacap.230071 -
Cureus Mar 2024Introduction Learning disability (LD) affects many school-going children and is seldom recognized or treated. As teachers spend time with students, they can easily...
Introduction Learning disability (LD) affects many school-going children and is seldom recognized or treated. As teachers spend time with students, they can easily recognize LD by observing academic activities and behaviors. In this context, the present study was conducted to assess the knowledge and practices of teachers regarding LD and evaluate the impact of an educational intervention on teachers' knowledge regarding LD and its screening and referral. Methods A pre-experimental study, including pre-post interventional assessments of teachers, was conducted from June 2018 to December 2019. A universal sample of 150 teachers from 10 schools teaching primary (first to fifth grade) and upper primary (sixth to eight grade) grades was included. Their knowledge about LD was assessed using the Dyslexia Assessment for the Languages of India (DALI), and an educational intervention for assessing, screening, and identifying LD was implemented. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 24.0 (IBM Inc., Armonk, New York). Using descriptive statistics (mean, median, and standard deviation). The pre-post test results were compared using the McNemar test. Results Overall knowledge about LD was 24.7% at baseline, and improved to 76% post-intervention (p<0.001). The knowledge for most of the components showed improvement. Teachers with a good level of knowledge increased from 21% to 84%. Post-intervention screening of students increased from 0.53% to 13.37%. The suspicion rate for LD increased from 0.04% to 1.94% post-intervention. Conclusion Knowledge about LD was poor among the school teachers. However, the overall knowledge about LD, its specific domains, screening as well as actual LD screening significantly improved after the intervention (p<0.001). This emphasizes the need of training primary and post-primary school teachers about LD and the services available for children with LD.
PubMed: 38586697
DOI: 10.7759/cureus.55685 -
Brain Communications 2024Language comprehension is often affected in individuals with post-stroke aphasia. However, deficits in auditory comprehension are not fully correlated with deficits in...
Language comprehension is often affected in individuals with post-stroke aphasia. However, deficits in auditory comprehension are not fully correlated with deficits in reading comprehension and the mechanisms underlying this dissociation remain unclear. This distinction is important for understanding language mechanisms, predicting long-term impairments and future development of treatment interventions. Using comprehensive auditory and reading measures from a large cohort of individuals with aphasia, we evaluated the relationship between aphasia type and reading comprehension impairments, the relationship between auditory versus reading comprehension deficits and the crucial neuroanatomy supporting the dissociation between post-stroke reading and auditory deficits. Scores from the Western Aphasia Battery-Revised from 70 participants with aphasia after a left-hemisphere stroke were utilized to evaluate both reading and auditory comprehension of linguistically equivalent stimuli. Repeated-measures and univariate ANOVA were used to assess the relationship between auditory comprehension and aphasia types and correlations were employed to test the relationship between reading and auditory comprehension deficits. Lesion-symptom mapping was used to determine the dissociation of crucial brain structures supporting reading comprehension deficits controlling for auditory deficits and vice versa. Participants with Broca's or global aphasia had the worst performance on reading comprehension. Auditory comprehension explained 26% of the variance in reading comprehension for sentence completion and 44% for following sequential commands. Controlling for auditory comprehension, worse reading comprehension performance was independently associated with damage to the inferior temporal gyrus, fusiform gyrus, posterior inferior temporal gyrus, inferior occipital gyrus, lingual gyrus and posterior thalamic radiation. Auditory and reading comprehension are only partly correlated in aphasia. Reading is an integral part of daily life and directly associated with quality of life and functional outcomes. This study demonstrated that reading performance is directly related to lesioned areas in the boundaries between visual association regions and ventral stream language areas. This behavioural and neuroanatomical dissociation provides information about the neurobiology of language and mechanisms for potential future treatment interventions.
PubMed: 38585671
DOI: 10.1093/braincomms/fcae102 -
The Journal of Pain Apr 2024Dyslexia and pain have recently been shown to correlate on a genetic level, but there has been little exploration of this association on the phenotypic level despite...
Dyslexia and pain have recently been shown to correlate on a genetic level, but there has been little exploration of this association on the phenotypic level despite reports of increased pain in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, which commonly co-occurs with dyslexia. In this study we test for an association between reading ability, which is the primary feature of dyslexia, and pain both in childhood and adulthood. Logistic regression modeling was used to test associations between reading ability in childhood and pain from childhood to midlife in a large UK birth cohort; the 1958 National Child Development Study. Associations were found between poor childhood reading ability and increased headache and abdominal pain in childhood, and between poor childhood reading ability and headache, eye pain, back pain, and rheumatism in adulthood. Mediation analyses indicated that socioeconomic status (defined by employment) fully mediated the association between poor reading ability in childhood and back pain at age 42. By contrast, the association between reading ability and eye pain acted independently of socioeconomic status. Different mechanisms were thus indicated for the association of reading with different pain types, including manual labor and a potential shared biological pathway. PERSPECTIVE: This study found a relationship between poor reading ability in childhood and pain in childhood and adulthood. Those with reading difficulties should be monitored for pain symptoms. Future research may uncover shared biological mechanisms, increasing our understanding of pain and potential treatments.
PubMed: 38580099
DOI: 10.1016/j.jpain.2024.03.014 -
Brain Sciences Mar 2024Reading disorders are frequent in homonymous hemianopia and are termed hemianopic dyslexia (HD). The existing treatment methods have shown improvements in reading speed,...
Reading disorders are frequent in homonymous hemianopia and are termed hemianopic dyslexia (HD). The existing treatment methods have shown improvements in reading speed, accuracy, and eye movements during reading. Yet, little is known about the transfer effects of such treatments on functional, reading-related tasks of daily life, e.g., reading phone numbers, finding typing errors or text memory. In addition, little is known about the effects on symptom load and return to work. Here, we examined a new reading therapy entailing three different methods-floating text, rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) of single words, and the moving window technique-and evaluated their efficacy. Twenty-seven chronic HD patients were treated in a baseline design with treatment-free intervals before and after a treatment period of several months. HD was assessed with a battery of reading tests and a questionnaire about subjective symptom load at four time-points. Patients received all three reading therapies over several weeks. The results show significant and stable improvements during treatment within all measures. Approximately 63% of treated patients returned to work after the therapy. We concluded that our novel HD treatment led to widespread and lasting improvements in reading performance, generalized to functional reading tasks and reduced symptom load, and the majority of patients were able to return to work.
PubMed: 38539647
DOI: 10.3390/brainsci14030259 -
NPJ Science of Learning Mar 2024Dyslexia and developmental language disorders are important learning difficulties. However, their genetic basis remains poorly understood, and most genetic studies were...
Dyslexia and developmental language disorders are important learning difficulties. However, their genetic basis remains poorly understood, and most genetic studies were performed on Europeans. There is a lack of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) on literacy phenotypes of Chinese as a native language and English as a second language (ESL) in a Chinese population. In this study, we conducted GWAS on 34 reading/language-related phenotypes in Hong Kong Chinese bilingual children (including both twins and singletons; total N = 1046). We performed association tests at the single-variant, gene, and pathway levels. In addition, we tested genetic overlap of these phenotypes with other neuropsychiatric disorders, as well as cognitive performance (CP) and educational attainment (EA) using polygenic risk score (PRS) analysis. Totally 5 independent loci (LD-clumped at r = 0.01; MAF > 0.05) reached genome-wide significance (p < 5e-08; filtered by imputation quality metric Rsq>0.3 and having at least 2 correlated SNPs (r > 0.5) with p < 1e-3). The loci were associated with a range of language/literacy traits such as Chinese vocabulary, character and word reading, and rapid digit naming, as well as English lexical decision. Several SNPs from these loci mapped to genes that were reported to be associated with EA and other neuropsychiatric phenotypes, such as MANEA and PLXNC1. In PRS analysis, EA and CP showed the most consistent and significant polygenic overlap with a variety of language traits, especially English literacy skills. To summarize, this study revealed the genetic basis of Chinese and English abilities in a group of Chinese bilingual children. Further studies are warranted to replicate the findings.
PubMed: 38538593
DOI: 10.1038/s41539-024-00229-7