Are numerical abilities determined at early age? A brain morphology study in children and adolescents with and without developmental dyscalculia

Unique longitudinal contributions of sulcal interruptions to reading acquisition in children

“…Results of the present study add to a growing body of literature indicating that inter-individual differences in the morphology of gyral gaps in association cortices are associated with various aspects of cognition such as numerical processing and reading skills (Borst et al, 2016;Cachia et al, 2018Cachia et al, , 2021Roell et al, 2021;Santacroce et al, 2024;Schwizer Ashkenazi et al, 2024;Tissier et al, 2018). The present and previous findings relating gyral gaps to individual differences in cognitive performance require manual definitions of gyral gaps in a relatively small sample of individuals, consistent with a "precision imaging" approach (Cachia et al, 2021;Gratton et al, 2022;Rosenberg & Finn, 2022).…”

“…Interestingly, associations between sulcal interruptions and behavior have also been reported for symbolic, but not non-symbolic, number processing (Roell et al, 2021;Schwizer Ashkenazi et al, 2024), highlighting common processes by which cultural acquisitions relying on neuronal recycling (Dehaene & Cohen, 2007;Dehaene-Lambertz et al, 2018;Kubota et al, 2023) may be boosted by the presence pre-existing gyral gaps. In the case of the left pOTS, various other aspects of early brain structure have been proposed to constrain the development of reading skills and the neural network involved in reading such as: (i) anatomical connectivity (Bouhali et al, 2014;Grotheer et al, 2021;Li et al, 2020;Moulton et al, 2019;Saygin et al, 2016) and (ii) cortical morphology.…”

“…For example, sulcal morphology in various human association cortices that have expanded significantly throughout evolution has been related to individual differences in abstract reasoning, executive function, inhibitory control, memory, face processing, and reading, as well as psychopathology (Amiez et al, 2018;Borst et al, 2014;Cachia et al, 2014;Garrison et al, 2015;Im et al, 2016;Lahutsina et al, 2023;Maboudian et al, 2024;Parker et al, 2023;Tissier et al, 2018;Voorhies et al, 2021;Willbrand et al, 2022;Yao et al, 2022). Moreover, recent research suggests that individual differences in sulcal interruptions are also related to individual differences in cognitive abilities such as numerical processing (Roell et al, 2021;Schwizer Ashkenazi et al, 2024), language and memory (Santacroce et al, 2024), and reading (Borst et al, 2016;Cachia et al, 2018). Sulcal interruptions (hereby referred to as gyral gaps) are a particular case of interconnecting gyri, historically known as pli de passage as coined by Gratiolet (1854), when they emerge on the brain surface.…”