title: Translating dyslexia across species.
abstract: Direct relationships between induced mutation in the DCDC2 candidate dyslexia susceptibility gene in mice and changes in behavioral measures of visual spatial learning have been reported. We were interested in determining whether performance on a visual-spatial learning and memory task could be translated across species (study 1) and whether children with reading impairment showed a similar impairment to animal models of the disorder (study 2). Study 1 included 37 participants who completed six trials of four different virtual Hebb-Williams maze configurations. A 2 × 4 × 6 mixed factorial repeated measures ANOVA indicated consistency in performance between humans and mice on these tasks, enabling us to translate across species. Study 2 included a total of 91 participants (age range = 8-13 years). Eighteen participants were identified with reading disorder by performance on the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Achievement. Participants completed six trials of five separate virtual Hebb-Williams maze configurations. A 2 × 5 × 6 mixed factorial ANCOVA (gender as covariate) indicated that individuals with reading impairment demonstrated impaired visuo-spatial performance on this task. Overall, results from this study suggest that we are able to translate behavioral deficits observed in genetic animal models of dyslexia to humans with reading impairment. Future studies will utilize the virtual environment to further explore the underlying basis for this impairment.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Lafayette College, Easton, PA, USA. gabell@lafayette.edu.|Program in Neuroscience, Lafayette College, Easton, PA, USA. gabell@lafayette.edu.
authors.forename: Lisa A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Gabel
authors.affiliation: Program in Neuroscience, Lafayette College, Easton, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Monica
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Manglani
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, Lafayette College, Easton, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Nicholas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Escalona
authors.affiliation: Program in Neuroscience, Lafayette College, Easton, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Jessica
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cysner
authors.affiliation: Program in Neuroscience, Lafayette College, Easton, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Rachel
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hamilton
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, Lafayette College, Easton, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Jeffrey
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pfaffmann
authors.affiliation: Department of Special Education, Boise State University, Boise, ID, USA.
authors.forename: Evelyn
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Johnson
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D004410:Dyslexia / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D013045:Species Specificity; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: CDSGs; DCDC2; Early detection; Reading impairment; Visual processing