Jamaludin, A. | bioRxiv Science

bioRxiv2024

Comparing neurocognitive mechanisms of mathematical ability and fluency in children: insights from an fNIRS study

BackgroundEarly proficiency in mathematics is a strong predictor of later academic success and life achievement, considering the practical skills that mastering the subject enables students to equip. Yet, there exists a paucity of research into the neural mechanisms supporting mathematical abilities in young children. Recent research utilises resting state functional connectivity (RSFC), a measure of the coherence of brain activity among brain regions in the absence of tasks, to understand the functional roles of these regions. MethodsWe analysed the RSFC of 45 children to investigate the intrinsic cognitive processes underpinning arithmetic processing in three regions of interest (ROIs): middle frontal gyrus, inferior parietal lobule, and precuneus. Correlations between RSFC among these regions and mathematics or math fluency scores, derived from the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test (WIAT-III), were examined. ResultsRSFC between the right precuneus and both the ipsilateral middle frontal gyrus and inferior parietal region may be associated with arithmetic processing speed and accuracy, while cross-hemispheric RSFC between the right precuneus and the left inferior parietal lobule appears to be associated with problem-solving and numeracy skills. RSFC between the right precuneus and left inferior parietal lobule differed in children performing below the 10th percentile in mathematics (out of 45 participants). ConclusionsThe results suggest that children of the same age may follow different neural development trajectories. More targeted and differentiated interventions are essential to offer additional and early support for students struggling with mathematics.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2023

Investigating the Neural Heterogeneity of Developmental Dyscalculia

Approximately 15%-20% of school-aged children suffer from Mathematics Learning Difficulties (MLD). Most children with developmental dyscalculia (DD) or MLD also have comorbid cognitive deficits. Recent literature suggests that research should focus on uncovering the neural underpinnings of MLD across more inclusive samples, rather than limiting studies to pure cases of DD or MLD with highly stringent inclusion criteria. Therefore, this study aims to identify neural aberrancies that may be common across multiple MLD cases with different deficit profiles. Nine MLD cases and forty-five typically developing (TD) children, all around seven years old (27 boys), were recruited. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), brain data were collected during an approximate resting state and a mathematical computation task (addition). Graph theory was then applied to assess global and nodal network indicators of brain function. When comparing the network indicators and brain activation of the MLD cases to those of TD children, no unified neural aberrancy was found across all cases. However, three MLD cases did show distinct neural aberrancies compared to TD children. The study discusses the implications of these findings, considering both the neural aberrancies in the three MLD cases and the neural similarities found in the other six cases, which were comparable to those of the TD children. This raises important questions about the presence and nature of aberrant neural indicators in MLD across large cohorts and highlights the need for further research in this area.

neuroscience↗