Dyslexia risk gene relates to representation of sound in the auditory brainstem.
Dyslexia is a reading disorder with strong associations with KIAA0319 and DCDC2. Both genes play a functional role in spike time precision of neurons. Strikingly, poor readers show an imprecise encoding of fast transients of speech in the auditory brainstem. Whether dyslexia risk genes are related to the quality of sound encoding in the auditory brainstem remains to be investigated. Here, we quantified the response consistency of speech-evoked brainstem responses to the acoustically presented syllable [da] in 159 genotyped, literate and preliterate children. When controlling for age, sex, familial risk and intelligence, partial correlation analyses associated a higher dyslexia risk loading with KIAA0319 with noisier responses. In contrast, a higher risk loading with DCDC2 was associated with a trend towards more stable responses. These results suggest that unstable representation of sound, and thus, reduced neural discrimination ability of stop consonants, occurred in genotypes carrying a higher amount of KIAA0319 risk alleles. Current data provide the first evidence that the dyslexia-associated gene KIAA0319 can alter brainstem responses and impair phoneme processing in the auditory brainstem. This brain-gene relationship provides insight into the complex relationships between phenotype and genotype thereby improving the understanding of the dyslexia-inherent complex multifactorial condition.
Department of Neuropsychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, 04103 Leipzig, Germany. Electronic address: neef@cbs.mpg.de.
Nicole E
NE
Neef
Department of Cell Therapy, Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
Bent
B
Müller
Department of Neuropsychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
Johanna
J
Liebig
Department of Neuropsychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, 04103 Leipzig, Germany; Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 12489 Berlin, Germany.
Gesa
G
Schaadt
Department of Neuropsychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
Maren
M
Grigutsch
Department of Neuropsychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
Thomas C
TC
Gunter
Department of Cell Therapy, Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
Arndt
A
Wilcke
Department of Cell Therapy, Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany; Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Epidemiology, University of Leipzig and LIFE-Leipzig Research Center for Civilization Diseases, University of Leipzig, Germany.
Holger
H
Kirsten
Department of Neuropsychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
Michael A
MA
Skeide
Department of Neuropsychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
Indra
I
Kraft
Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA.
Nina
N
Kraus
Department of Cell Therapy, Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
Frank
F
Emmrich
Department of Neuropsychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
Jens
J
Brauer
Department of Cell Therapy, Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany; Department of Medical Cell Technology, Fraunhofer Research Institution for Marine Biotechnology, and Institute for Medical and Marine Biotechnology, University of Lübeck, Germany.
Johannes
J
Boltze
Department of Neuropsychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
Angela D
AD
Friederici
D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004410:Dyslexia / Q000235:genetics* / Q000503:physiopathology; D016057:Evoked Potentials, Auditory, Brain Stem / Q000235:genetics*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000379:methods*; D012306:Risk; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000235:genetics*
Brainstem responses; DCDC2; Developmental dyslexia; Genetic risk; KIAA0319; Sound processing