Differences in connectivity in certain brain areas found in dyslexic children

From research news@Vanderbilt:

‘White matter’ behaves differently in children with dyslexia

Posted on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014 — 11:15 AM

[…]

Laurie Cutting (Vanderbilt)

Laurie Cutting, Patricia and Rodes Hart Professor of Special Education, and professor of psychology and human development, radiology and pediatrics at Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development, is part of a transinstitutional team of researchers using neuroimaging to examine structural differences in connectivity in children with dyslexia as compared to typically developing readers.

Study results were recently published by journals Brain Connectivityand Brain Research.

While many dyslexia studies focus on the cerebral cortex, the researchers, which included faculty from pediatrics, engineering, radiology, psychology, special education and other Vanderbilt departments and centers, targeted the sub-cortical thalamus region. The thalamus serves as the brain’s connector—relaying sensory and motor signals back to the cerebral cortex via nerve fibers that are part of the brain’s…