AUTHOR=Turesky Ted K. , Luetje Megan M. , Eden Guinevere F. 

TITLE=An fMRI study of finger movements in children with and without dyslexia

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neuroscience

VOLUME=Volume 17 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnins.2023.1135437

DOI=10.3389/fnins.2023.1135437

ISSN=1662-453X

ABSTRACT=Developmental dyslexia is a language-based reading disability, yet some have reported motor impairments, usually attributed to cerebellar dysfunction. Using fMRI, we compared children with and without dyslexia during irregularly paced, left or right-hand finger tapping. A whole-brain analysis revealed relatively less activation in the group with dyslexia in right anterior cerebellum during right hand tapping. Next, we examined seed-to-voxel intrinsic functional connectivity (iFC) using six seed regions of the motor system (left and right anterior lobe of the cerebellum, SM1 and SMA) and found the group with dyslexia to have greater iFC between the right SM1 seed and a medial aspect of right postcentral gyrus for left hand tapping; and greater iFC between the left SM1 seed and left thalamus, as well as weaker local iFC around the left SM1 seed region for right hand tapping. Lastly, extracted activity and connectivity values that had been identified in these between-group comparisons were not correlated with measures of reading. We conclude that there are some aberrations in motor system function in children with dyslexia, but these are not tied to reading ability.