Brain-behavior dynamics between the left fusiform and reading.

The visual word form area (VWFA) plays a significant role in the development of reading skills. However, the developmental course and anatomical properties of the VWFA have only limitedly been investigated. The aim of the current longitudinal MRI study was to investigate dynamic, bidirectional relations between reading, and the structure of the left fusiform gyrus at the early-to-advanced reading stage.

Investigating the Added Value of FreeSurfer's Manual Editing Procedure for the Study of the Reading Network in a Pediatric Population.

Insights into brain anatomy are important for the early detection of neurodevelopmental disorders, such as dyslexia. FreeSurfer is one of the most frequently applied automatized software tools to study brain morphology. However, quality control of the outcomes provided by FreeSurfer is often ignored and could lead to wrong statistical inferences.

Atypical gray matter in children with dyslexia before the onset of reading instruction.

Many studies have focused on neuroanatomical anomalies in dyslexia, yet primarily in school-aged children and adults. In the present study, we investigated gray matter surface area and cortical thickness at the pre-reading stage in a cohort of 54 children, 31 with a family risk for dyslexia and 23 without a family risk for dyslexia, of whom 16 children developed dyslexia. Surface-based analyses in the core regions of the reading network in the left hemisphere and in the corresponding right hemispheric regions were performed in FreeSurfer.

Evaluation of methods for volumetric analysis of pediatric brain data: The child pipeline versus adult-based approaches.

Pediatric brain volumetric analysis based on Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is of particular interest in order to understand the typical brain development and to characterize neurodevelopmental disorders at an early age. However, it has been shown that the results can be biased due to head motion, inherent to pediatric data, and due to the use of methods based on adult brain data that are not able to accurately model the anatomical disparity of pediatric brains. To overcome these issues, we proposed child, a tool developed for the analysis of pediatric neuroimaging data that uses an age-specific atlas and a probabilistic model-based approach in order to segment the gray matter (GM) and white matter (WM).

Preserved imitation in contrast to limited free application of comfortable hand actions in intellectually able young adults with an autism spectrum disorder.

Imitation problems are commonly reported in children with an autism spectrum disorder. However, it has not yet been determined whether imitation problems persist into young adulthood. In this study, we investigated imitation skills of 20 intellectually able young adults with autism spectrum disorder relative to 19 age-matched neurotypical adults.