A comparison of cortical anatomy between college students with different reading skills Suzanne E. Welcome1, Christine Chiarello1, Paul Thompson2, & Elizabeth Sowell2

1University of California, Riverside2Laboratory of NeuroImaging, University of California, Los Angeles

Participants200 university students screened•22 Proficient Readers: percentile ranks above 45 on both Word Attack and Passage Comprehension subtests•21 Resilient Readers: percentile ranks above 45 on Passage Comprehension subtest, below 33 on Word Attack subtest•12 Poor Readers: percentile ranks below 33 on both Word Attack and Passage Comprehension subtests

Structural MRI ProcessingEach participant received a volumetric MRI scan (3-D SPGR, 1.2 mm thick images)•Tissue classification algorithm segmented gray matter, white matter, and CSF (Shattuck, et al, 201)•17 sulci in each hemisphere traced•Surface warping algorithm used to drive anatomy from each individual into correspondence (Thompson, et al., 2000)•Radial expansion (local brain size) and gray matter thickness calculated for each subject and compared across groups•Permutation analyses to correct for multiple comparisons

Results Conclusions

• Dyslexic subjects show altered morphology across several cortical regions:

-Inferior frontal cortex (Eckert, et al., 2003)-Temporo-parietal cortex (Brown, et al., 2001)-Inferior occipital-temporal cortex (Brambati, et al., 2004)

• Different cortical regions may play different roles in reading processes (Pugh, et al., 1996). •Resilient readers show deficits in phonological processing, but not comprehension (Welcome, et al., 2009).

-Comparisons with proficient readers allow investigation of neural substrates of phonological skill-Comparisons with poor readers allow investigation of neural substrates of comprehension skill

Introduction

This research was supported by NIH grant DC006957.

•.Resilient and poor readers, who share phonological processing deficits, show decreased asymmetry of gray matter thickness in temporo-parietal regions.

-Temporo-parietal regions more active during tasks that require print-to-sound conversion (Booth, et al., 2002)

•Poor, but not resilient, readers show decreased radial expansion of bilateral inferior frontal regions.

-Anterior portion of inferior frontal gyrus shows activation during semantic tasks (Poldrack, et al., 1999)

•Resilient readers show trend toward alteration of medial morphology.

-Medial frontal cortex may play a role in conflict detection or error monitoring (Kiehl, et al, 2000)

•Phonological decoding and reading comprehension skills appear to relate to different aspects of brain morphology.

•Resilient readers show neuroanatomical differences from both poor readers and proficient readers, suggesting that they may represent a separate reading population.

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Methods

References

Proficient versus

Poor

Proficient versus

Resilient

Resilient versus

Poor

Proficient versus

Poor

Proficient versus

Resilient

Resilient versus

Poor

Proficient Proficient Readers Readers (N=22)(N=22)

Poor ReadersPoor Readers

(N=12)(N=12)

Resilient Resilient Readers (N=21)Readers (N=21)

GroupGroup

DifferencesDifferences

Word AttackWord Attack 6262 2121 2020 Res/Poor < ProRes/Poor < Pro

Passage Comp.Passage Comp. 6969 2929 6666 Poor < Res/ProPoor < Res/Pro

Word IdentificationWord Identification 6161 2626 4040 Poor < Res < ProPoor < Res < Pro

Verbal IQVerbal IQ 112112 9898 109109 Poor < Res/ProPoor < Res/Pro

Performance IQPerformance IQ 110110 106106 106106 NSNS

SexSex 11M, 11F11M, 11F 4M, 8F4M, 8F 13M, 8F13M, 8F NSNS

AgeAge 22.022.0 21.121.1 20.220.2 NSNS

SESSES 3.33.3 3.03.0 3.53.5 NSNS

Handedness QuestionnaireHandedness Questionnaire0.80.8

(2 non-RH)(2 non-RH)

0.70.7

(1 non-RH)(1 non-RH)

0.60.6

(3 non-RH)(3 non-RH)

NSNS

• Poor readers have less radial expansion than proficient and resilient readers in bilateral inferior frontal regions

•Resilient readers do not differ from proficient readers in radial expansion

• Both poor and resilient readers show less leftward asymmetry of gray matter thickness in the temporo-parietal region

•Trends toward more leftward asymmetry of medial surface in resilient readers

Booth, J. R., Burman, D. D., Meyer, J. R., Gitelman, D. R., Parrish, T. B., & Mesulam, M. M. (2002). Functional anatomy of intra- and cross-modal lexical tasks. Neuroimage, 16(1), 7- 22.Brambati, S. M., Termine, C., Ruffino, M., Stella, G., Fazio, F., Cappa, S. F., & Perani, D. (2004). Regional reductions of gray matter volume in familial dyslexia. Neurology, 63(4), 742-745.Brown, W. E., Eliez, S., Menon, V., Rumsey, J. M., White, C. D., & Reiss, A. L. (2001). Preliminary evidence of widespread morphological variations of the brain in dyslexia. Neurology, 56(6), 781-783.Eckert, M. A., Leonard, C. M., Richards, T. L., Aylward, E. H., Thomson, J., & Berninger, V. W. (2003). Anatomical correlates of dyslexia: frontal and cerebellar findings. Brain, 126(Pt 2), 482-494.Kiehl, K. A., Liddle, P. F., & Hopfinger, J. B. (2000). Error processing and the rostral anterior cingulate: an event-related fMRI study. Psychophysiology, 37(2), 216-223.Poldrack, R. A., Wagner, A. D., Prull, M. W., Desmond, J. E., Glover, G. H., & Gabrieli, J. D. (1999). Functional specialization for semantic and phonological processing in the left inferior prefrontal cortex. Neuroimage, 10(1), 15-35.Shattuck, D. W., Sandor-Leahy, S. R., Schaper, K. A., Rottenberg, D. A., & Leahy, R. M. (2001). Magnetic resonance image tissue classification using a partial volume model. NeuroImage, 13(5), 856-876.Thompson, P. M., Woods, R. P., Mega, M. S., & Toga, A. W. (2000). Mathematical/computational challenges in creating deformable and probabilistic atlases of the human brain. Human Brain Mapping, 9, 81-92.Welcome, S. E., Chiarello, C., Halderman, L. K., & Leonard, C. M. (2009). Lexical processing skill in college-age resilient readers. Reading and Writing, 22(3), 353-371.

Leftward Asym.Rightward Asym.