The Role of Executive Functions in Dyslexia: Lessons Learned Across the Pond

This fMRI study examined the plasticity of neural circuits related to reading and executive functions in children with dyslexia. Participants underwent a computerized executive-functions based reading intervention. Following this intervention, improved reading and executive function scores were associated with more focal and left lateralized activation patterns on fMRI. This effect was most evident in the anterior cingulate cortex and the fusiform gyrus. Both regions also exhibited increased functional connectivity following training.  Further analysis revealed increased resting state functional connectivity in the cingulo-opercular cognitive control network. These results corroborate previous findings from ERP studies in Hebrew-speaking children with dyslexia.

These findings provide a compelling link between physiologic and behavioral data regarding the effect of a remedial intervention on children with dyslexia. The resting state analysis is of particular interest as it enables evaluation of children prior to actual reading acquisition. From a translational perspective, these results highlight the anterior cingulate cortex and more specifically the cingulo-opercular cognitive control network as a possible target for intervention programs for children with reading difficulties.

Speaker Bio: Tzipi Horowitz-Kraus, Ph.D. is the Program Director of the Reading and Literacy Discovery Center at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) and an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Tzipi received her B.Sc.  in Biology and her M.Sc. in Neurobiology from the Department of Neurobiochemistry at Tel-Aviv University.  She earned her M.A. in the clinical program of Learning Disabilities (Summa Cum Laude) and her Ph.D. (2009) from the University of Haifa. Her Ph.D. focused on characterizing event-related potentials in children with dyslexia. In 2011, Dr. Horowitz-Kraus was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and joined the Pediatric Neuroimaging Research Consortium at CCHMC as a  post-doctoral fellow. Her research used advanced neuroimaging tools including fMRI, DTI and EEG to further explore  the role of executive functions in reading disabilities in children. Today, Tzipi is looking for early biomarkers for dyslexia and other reading-related difficulties in children focusing on cognitive abilities that underlie reading and language development.