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Sex differences in low-level multisensory integration in developmental dyslexia
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Poster D109 in Poster Session D, Wednesday, October 25, 4:45 - 6:30 pm CEST, Espace Vieux-Port
Agnieszka Glica1, Katarzyna Wasilewska1, Bartosz Kossowski2, Jarosław Żygierewicz3, Katarzyna Jednoróg1; 1Laboratory of Language Neurobiology, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Polish Academy of Sciences, 2Laboratory of Brain Imaging, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Polish Academy of Science, 3Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw
Background Reading acquisition involves the integration of auditory and visual stimuli. Thus, low-level audiovisual multisensory integration might contribute to disrupted reading in developmental dyslexia. Although dyslexia is more frequently diagnosed in males, previous studies examining multisensory integration did not evaluate potential sex differences nor tested its neural correlates. Methods We investigated multisensory integration using simple detection of stimuli in unisensory (white flash in the visual-alone and 1000 Hz tone in the auditory-alone condition) compared to the multisensory condition (simultaneous presentation of visual and auditory stimuli) while continuous EEG was recorded in 88 adolescents (44 with dyslexia and 44 controls, with an equal number of males and females). To assess the behavioral effect of multisensory integration, the race model inequality was applied. At the neural level, early components of event-related potentials related to sensory processing (i.e., P1, N1, N2) were evaluated in response to the multisensory compared to the sum of unisensory conditions. Results We found that only males with dyslexia showed a deficit in multisensory integration of simple non-linguistic stimuli at the behavioral level, and this deficit was related to lower reading speed. At the neural level, both females and males with dyslexia presented smaller differences in response to multisensory compared to unisensory conditions in the N1 and N2 components than the control group. Additionally, the neural indices of multisensory integration were differently related to reading skills in females and males. Conclusions Our study indicates that deficits of multisensory integration seem to be more severe in males than females with dyslexia. This provides important insights into sex-modulated cognitive processes that might confer vulnerability to reading difficulties.
Topic Areas: Multisensory or Sensorimotor Integration, Disorders: Developmental