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Dyslexic Children Show Atypical Cerebellar Activation and Cerebro-Cerebellar Functional Connectivity in Orthographic and Phonological Processing

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Abstract

Previous neuroimaging studies have found atypical cerebellar activation in individuals with dyslexia in either motor-related tasks or language tasks. However, studies investigating atypical cerebellar activation in individuals with dyslexia have mostly used tasks tapping phonological processing. A question that is yet unanswered is whether the cerebellum in individuals with dyslexia functions properly during orthographic processing of words, as growing evidence shows that the cerebellum is also involved in visual and spatial processing. Here, we investigated cerebellar activation and cerebro-cerebellar functional connectivity during word processing in dyslexic readers and typically developing readers using tasks that tap orthographic and phonological codes. In children with dyslexia, we observed an abnormally higher engagement of the bilateral cerebellum for the orthographic task, which was negatively correlated with literacy measures. The greater the reading impairment was for young dyslexic readers, the stronger the cerebellar activation was. This suggests a compensatory role of the cerebellum in reading for children with dyslexia. In addition, a tendency for higher cerebellar activation in dyslexic readers was found in the phonological task. Moreover, the functional connectivity was stronger for dyslexic readers relative to typically developing readers between the lobule VI of the right cerebellum and the left fusiform gyrus during the orthographic task and between the lobule VI of the left cerebellum and the left supramarginal gyrus during the phonological task. This pattern of results suggests that the cerebellum compensates for reading impairment through the connections with specific brain regions responsible for the ongoing reading task. These findings enhance our understanding of the cerebellum’s involvement in reading and reading impairment.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC: 81171016, 81371206, 31571158) and the National Key Basic Research Program of China (2014CB846102). We sincerely thank the children, parents, and schools for their participation and cooperation in our study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning and IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, People’s Republic of China

    Xiaoxia Feng, Le Li, Mengyu Tian, Li Liu & Guosheng Ding

  2. Department of Psychology and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, People’s Republic of China

    Manli Zhang, Xiujie Yang, Weiyi Xie & Xiangzhi Meng

  3. Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, School of psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, People’s Republic of China

    Yao Lu

  4. Center for Collaboration and Innovation in Brain and Learning Sciences, Beijing, 100875, People’s Republic of China

    Li Liu & Guosheng Ding

  5. Laboratory for Language and Cognitive Neuroscience, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, 92120, USA

    Nathalie N. Bélanger

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  1. Xiaoxia Feng
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  2. Le Li
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Feng, X., Li, L., Zhang, M. et al. Dyslexic Children Show Atypical Cerebellar Activation and Cerebro-Cerebellar Functional Connectivity in Orthographic and Phonological Processing. Cerebellum 16, 496–507 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12311-016-0829-2

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