title: Altered connectivity of the dorsal and ventral visual regions in dyslexic children: a resting-state fMRI study.
abstract: While there is emerging evidence from behavioral studies that visual attention skills are impaired in dyslexia, the corresponding neural mechanism (i.e., deficits in the dorsal visual region) needs further investigation. We used resting-state fMRI to explore the functional connectivity (FC) patterns of the left intraparietal sulcus (IPS) and the visual word form area (VWFA) in dyslexic children (N = 21, age mean = 12) and age-matched controls (N = 26, age mean = 12). The results showed that the left IPS and the VWFA were functionally connected to each other in both groups and that both were functionally connected to left middle frontal gyrus (MFG). Importantly, we observed significant group differences in FC between the left IPS and the left MFG and between the VWFA and the left MFG. In addition, the strengths of the identified FCs were significantly correlated with the score of fluent reading, which required obvious eye movement and visual attention processing, but not with the lexical decision score. We conclude that dyslexics have deficits in the network composed of the prefrontal, dorsal visual and ventral visual regions and may have a lack of modulation from the left MFG to the dorsal and ventral visual regions.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning and IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University Beijing, China ; Center for Collaboration and Innovation in Brain and Learning Sciences, Beijing Normal University Beijing, China ; Beijing Key Lab of Learning and Cognition, Department of Psychology, Capital Normal University Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning and IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University Beijing, China ; Center for Collaboration and Innovation in Brain and Learning Sciences, Beijing Normal University Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Zhichao
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Xia
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning and IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University Beijing, China ; Center for Collaboration and Innovation in Brain and Learning Sciences, Beijing Normal University Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Yanchao
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Bi
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning and IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University Beijing, China ; Center for Collaboration and Innovation in Brain and Learning Sciences, Beijing Normal University Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Hua
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Shu
keywords: dorsal visual region; dyslexia; resting-state; visual attention deficit