Neurochemistry Predicts Convergence of Written and Spoken Language: A Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Study of Cross-Modal Language Integration

Frontiers in Psychology

Douglas L. Rothman¹  Kenneth R. Pugh²  Fumiko Hoeft³  Graeme F. Mason⁴  Robert K. Fulbright⁵  Stephanie N. Del Tufo⁷  Stephen J. Frost⁷  Peter J. Molfese⁹  Laurie E. Cutting^1,11 

[1] 0Department of Biomedical Engineering, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, United States;1Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, United States;Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States;Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, United States;Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, United States;Department of Special Education, Peabody College, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States;Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT, United States;Peabody College of Education and Human Development, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States;Section on Functional Imaging Methods, Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, United States;Vanderbilt Brain Institute, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN, United States;Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States;

关键词: magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS);    reading;    multisensory;    cross-modal;    reading disability (RD);    developmental dyslexia;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01507

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Recent studies have provided evidence of associations between neurochemistry and reading (dis)ability (Pugh et al., 2014). Based on a long history of studies indicating that fluent reading entails the automatic convergence of the written and spoken forms of language and our recently proposed Neural Noise Hypothesis (Hancock et al., 2017), we hypothesized that individual differences in cross-modal integration would mediate, at least partially, the relationship between neurochemical concentrations and reading. Cross-modal integration was measured in 231 children using a two-alternative forced choice cross-modal matching task with three language conditions (letters, words, and pseudowords) and two levels of difficulty within each language condition. Neurometabolite concentrations of Choline (Cho), Glutamate (Glu), gamma-Aminobutyric (GABA), and N- acetyl-aspartate (NAA) were then measured in a subset of this sample (n = 70) with Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS). A structural equation mediation model revealed that the effect of cross-modal word matching mediated the relationship between increased Glu (which has been proposed to be an index of neural noise) and poorer reading ability. In addition, the effect of cross-modal word matching fully mediated a relationship between increased Cho and poorer reading ability. Multilevel mixed effects models confirmed that lower Cho predicted faster cross-modal matching reaction time, specifically in the hard word condition. These Cho findings are consistent with previous work in both adults and children showing a negative association between Cho and reading ability. We also found two novel neurochemical relationships. Specifically, lower GABA and higher NAA predicted faster cross-modal matching reaction times. We interpret these results within a biochemical framework in which the ability of neurochemistry to predict reading ability may at least partially be explained by cross-modal integration.

【 授权许可】

Unknown