Unité CODE, Faculté de Psychologie, Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
J Cogn Neurosci. 2010 May;22(5):860-74. doi: 10.1162/jocn.2009.21237.
Developmental dyscalculia (DD) is a deficit in number processing and arithmetic that affects 3-6% of schoolchildren. The goal of the present study was to analyze cerebral bases of DD related to symbolic number processing. Children with DD aged 9-11 years and matched children with no learning disability history were investigated using fMRI. The two groups of children were controlled for general cognitive factors, such as working memory, reading abilities, or IQ. Brain activations were measured during a number comparison task on pairs of Arabic numerals and a color comparison task on pairs of nonnumerical symbols. In each task, pairs of stimuli that were close or far on the relevant dimension were constituted. Brain activation in bilateral intraparietal sulcus (IPS) was modulated by numerical distance in controls but not in children with DD. Moreover, although the right IPS responded to numerical distance only, the left IPS was influenced by both numerical and color distances in control children. Our findings suggest that dyscalculia is associated with impairment in areas involved in number magnitude processing and, to a lesser extent, in areas dedicated to domain-general magnitude processing.
发展性计算障碍（DD）是一种影响 3-6%学龄儿童的数字处理和算术缺陷。本研究的目的是分析与符号数字处理相关的 DD 的大脑基础。使用 fMRI 对 9-11 岁的 DD 儿童和无学习障碍史的匹配儿童进行了研究。两组儿童在工作记忆、阅读能力或智商等一般认知因素方面进行了控制。在数字比较任务中对阿拉伯数字对和非数字符号对进行了测量，在颜色比较任务中对非数字符号对进行了测量。在每个任务中，都构成了在相关维度上接近或远离的刺激对。双侧顶内沟（IPS）的大脑激活受到控制组中数字距离的调制，但在 DD 儿童中不受影响。此外，尽管右 IPS 仅对数字距离有反应，但左 IPS 受到控制儿童中数字和颜色距离的影响。我们的研究结果表明，计算障碍与参与数量大小处理的区域的损伤有关，而与专门用于域泛数量处理的区域的损伤较小。
