Clark Caron A C, Liu Yating, Wright Nicolas Lee Abbot, Bedrick Alan, Edgin Jamie O
Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, United States; Department of Educational Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, United States.
Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, United States.
Brain Cogn. 2017 Nov;118:90-99. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2017.07.011. Epub 2017 Aug 9.
High rates of mathematics learning disabilities among individuals born preterm (<37weeksGA) have spurred calls for a greater understanding of the nature of these weaknesses and their neural underpinnings. Groups of healthy, high functioning young adults born preterm and full term (n=20) completed a symbolic and non-symbolic magnitude comparison task while undergoing functional MRI scanning. Collectively, participants showed activation in superior and inferior frontal and parietal regions previously linked to numeric processing when comparing non-symbolic magnitude arrays separated by small numeric distances. Simultaneous deactivation of the default mode network also was evident during these trials. Individuals born preterm showed increased signal change relative to their full term peers in right inferior frontal and parietal regions when comparing the non-symbolic magnitude arrays. Elevated signal change during non-symbolic task blocks was associated with poorer performance on a calculation task administered outside of the scanner. These findings indicate that healthy, high-functioning adults born preterm may recruit fronto-parietal networks more extensively when processing non-symbolic magnitudes, suggesting that approximate number system training may be an inroad for early intervention to prevent mathematics difficulties in this population.
早产（孕周<37周）个体中数学学习障碍的高发生率促使人们呼吁更深入地了解这些弱点的本质及其神经基础。一组健康、功能良好的早产和足月出生的年轻成年人（n = 20）在进行功能磁共振成像扫描时完成了一项符号和非符号大小比较任务。总体而言，当比较小数字距离分隔的非符号大小数组时，参与者在先前与数字处理相关的额上回、额下回和顶叶区域出现激活。在这些试验中，默认模式网络的同时失活也很明显。在比较非符号大小数组时，早产个体相对于足月同龄人在右下额叶和顶叶区域显示出信号变化增加。非符号任务块期间信号变化升高与扫描仪外进行的计算任务表现较差相关。这些发现表明，健康、功能良好的早产成年人在处理非符号大小时可能更广泛地招募额顶网络，这表明近似数系统训练可能是预防该人群数学困难的早期干预途径。
