Altered brain structures in the dorsal and ventral language pathways in individuals with and without developmental langu
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ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Altered brain structures in the dorsal and ventral language pathways in individuals with and without developmental language disorder (DLD) Joanna C. Lee 1 & Anthony Steven Dick 2 & J. Bruce Tomblin 1
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by difficulty learning and using language, and this difficulty cannot be attributed to other developmental conditions. The aim of the current study was to examine structural differences in dorsal and ventral language pathways between adolescents and young adults with and without DLD (age range: 14–27 years) using anatomical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Results showed age-related structural brain differences in both dorsal and ventral pathways in individuals with DLD. These findings provide evidence for neuroanatomical correlates of persistent language deficits in adolescents/young adults with DLD, and further suggest that this brain-language relationship in DLD is better characterized by taking account the dynamic course of the disorder along development. Keywords Developmental language disorder . Dorsal pathway . Ventral pathway . Structural brain imaging
Introduction Developmental language disorder (DLD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by difficulty learning and using language, and this difficulty cannot be attributed to sensory, intellectual, social, or emotional problems (Leonard 1998). Epidemiological studies have shown that DLD affects approximately 7% of children starting school (Norbury et al. 2016; Tomblin et al. 1997). Morphosyntactic deficits are the primary hallmark of DLD. Children with DLD have significant problems with production and/or comprehension of grammatical inflections and complex sentences, and these deficits persist well into adolescence and adulthood (Norbury et al. 2008). While most earlier work focused on development of morphology and syntax in DLD, recent studies have shown that individuals with DLD also have atypical
* Joanna C. Lee [email protected] 1
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA
2
Department of Psychology, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA
lexical-semantic development, which frequently manifests as a small quantity of words learned as well as a poor quality of words learned (see Nation 2014, for a review). Despite its high prevalence rate, the neurobiology of DLD remains poorly understood (Krishnan et al. 2016). Understanding the neural basis of DLD is important, both theoretically and clinically. On the one hand, DLD represents the lower end of the normal distribution with regard to language ability (Dollaghan 2011; Leonard 2014), and thus findings concerning the neurobiological basis of DLD will shed light on the mechanisms underlying individual differences in language development and learning. On the other hand, better understanding of the neural correlate
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