Kurth Florian, Luders Eileen, Pigdon Lauren, Conti-Ramsden Gina, Reilly Sheena, Morgan Angela T
School of Psychology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia.
Dev Psychobiol. 2018 Nov;60(7):814-824. doi: 10.1002/dev.21762. Epub 2018 Aug 13.
Developmental language disorder (DLD) and speech sound disorder (SSD) are common, and although scientific evidence for structural and functional alterations in DLD/SSD is accumulating, current neuroimaging studies provide an incongruent picture. Here, we hypothesized that children affected by DLD and SSD present with gray matter (or gray matter asymmetry) aberrations in brain areas associated with language processing compared to typically developing (TD) children. To assess this hypothesis, we enhanced MRI-based information with microscopically defined cytoarchitectonic probabilities of Broca's area (BA 45, BA 44) as well as an auditory area (TE 3.0). We detected a larger rightward gray matter asymmetry in BA 45 in children with DLD (n = 13) and with SSD (n = 18) compared to TD children (n = 18), albeit only on a trend level. Interestingly though, we observed significantly larger gray matter volumes in right BA 45 in DLD compared to SSD children (and also compared to TD children).
发育性语言障碍（DLD）和语音障碍（SSD）很常见，尽管关于DLD/SSD结构和功能改变的科学证据在不断积累，但目前的神经影像学研究结果并不一致。在此，我们假设与发育正常（TD）的儿童相比，受DLD和SSD影响的儿童在与语言处理相关的脑区存在灰质（或灰质不对称）异常。为了验证这一假设，我们利用显微镜定义的布洛卡区（BA 45、BA 44）以及一个听觉区域（TE 3.0）的细胞构筑概率来增强基于MRI的信息。我们发现，与TD儿童（n = 18）相比，DLD儿童（n = 13）和SSD儿童（n = 18）在BA 45区存在更大的右侧灰质不对称，尽管仅处于趋势水平。然而，有趣的是，我们观察到与SSD儿童（以及TD儿童）相比，DLD儿童右侧BA 45区的灰质体积显著更大。
