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Developmental dyscalculia: a dysconnection syndrome?

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Abstract

Numerical understanding is important for everyday life. For children with developmental dyscalculia (DD), numbers and magnitudes present profound problems which are thought to be based upon neuronal impairments of key regions for numerical understanding. The aim of the present study was to investigate possible differences in white matter fibre integrity between children with DD and controls using diffusion tensor imaging. White matter integrity and behavioural measures were evaluated in 15 children with developmental dyscalculia aged around 10 years and 15 matched controls. The main finding, obtained by a whole brain group comparison, revealed reduced fractional anisotropy in the superior longitudinal fasciculus in children with developmental dyscalculia. In addition, a region of interest analysis exhibited prominent deficits in fibres of the superior longitudinal fasciculus adjacent to the intraparietal sulcus, which is thought to be the core region for number processing. To conclude, our results outline deficient fibre projection between parietal, temporal and frontal regions in children with developmental dyscalculia, and therefore raise the question of whether dyscalculia can be seen as a dysconnection syndrome. Since the superior longitudinal fasciculus is involved in the integration and control of distributed brain processes, the present results highlight the importance of considering broader domain-general mechanisms in the diagnosis and therapy of dyscalculia.

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Acknowledgments

Many thanks to all children and parents, who participated in this study, to the financial support by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (01GJ1011) and the NOMIS-Foundation and the proof-reading by PD Dr. Ruth O’Gorman.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for MR-Research, University Children’s Hospital Zurich, Steinwiesstrasse 75, 8032, Zurich, Switzerland

    Karin Kucian, Simone Schwizer Ashkenazi, Stephanie Rotzer, Ernst Martin & Michael von Aster

  2. Children’s Research Center, University Children’s Hospital Zurich, Steinwiesstrasse 75, 8032, Zurich, Switzerland

    Karin Kucian, Ernst Martin & Michael von Aster

  3. Division Neuropsychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Zurich, Binzmühlestrasse 14, 8050, Zurich, Switzerland

    Simone Schwizer Ashkenazi, Jürgen Hänggi, Stephanie Rotzer & Lutz Jäncke

  4. Center of Integrative Human Physiology, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstr. 190, 8057, Zurich, Switzerland

    Ernst Martin

  5. Department of Child- and Adolescent Psychiatry, DRK-Hospital Westend Berlin, Spandauer Damm 130, 14050, Berlin, Germany

    Michael von Aster

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  1. Karin Kucian
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  2. Simone Schwizer Ashkenazi
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Correspondence to Karin Kucian.

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Karin Kucian and Simone Schwizer Ashkenazi contributed equally to this work.

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Kucian, K., Ashkenazi, S.S., Hänggi, J. et al. Developmental dyscalculia: a dysconnection syndrome?. Brain Struct Funct 219, 1721–1733 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-013-0597-4

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