Associations of Reading Efficiency with White Matter Properties of the Cerebellar Peduncles in Children
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Associations of Reading Efficiency with White Matter Properties of the Cerebellar Peduncles in Children Lisa Bruckert 1 & Katherine E. Travis 1 & Aviv A. Mezer 2 & Michal Ben-Shachar 3,4 & Heidi M. Feldman 1,5
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Reading in children has been associated with microstructural properties of the cerebellar peduncles, the white matter pathways connecting the cerebellum to the cerebrum. In this study, we used two independent neuroimaging modalities to assess which features of the cerebellar peduncles would be associated with reading. Twenty-three 8-year-old children were evaluated on word reading efficiency and imaged using diffusion MRI (dMRI) and quantitative T1 relaxometry (qT1). We segmented the superior (SCP), middle, and inferior cerebellar peduncles and extracted two metrics: fractional anisotropy (FA) from dMRI and R1 from qT1. Tract-FA was significantly correlated with tract-R1 in left and right SCPs (left: rP(21) = .63, right: rP(21) = .76, p ≤ .001) suggesting that FA of these peduncles, at least in part, indexed myelin content. Tract-FA and tract R1 were not correlated in the other cerebellar peduncles. Reading efficiency negatively correlated with tract-FA of the left (rP(21) = − .43, p = .040) and right SCP (rP(21) = − .37, p = .079). Reading efficiency did not correlate with tract-R1 in the SCPs. The negative association of reading efficiency with tract-FA and the lack of association of reading efficiency with tract-R1 implicate properties other than myelin content as relevant to the information flow between the cerebellum and the cerebrum for individual differences in reading skills in children. Keywords Reading . Cerebellum . White matter . Diffusion MRI . Quantitative T1 relaxometry . Tractography
Introduction The cerebellum is a major structure of the hindbrain located in the posterior fossa of the skull. Though it has long been recognized to serve an essential role in motor functions, such as Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12311-020-01162-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Heidi M. Feldman [email protected] 1
Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics, Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
2
Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
3
Department of English Literature and Linguistics, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
4
The Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
5
Medical School Office Building, 1265 Welch Road, Room X163, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
balance, coordination, and posture [1, 2], it has also been implicated in multiple cognitive functions, including reading [3–6]. In a seminal functional MRI study, Fulbright et al. [5] found cerebellar activation across a series of reading tasks. An increase in the cognitive demand of the task (orthographic vs. phonological vs. semanti
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