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Small Left Middle Temporal Gyrus Volume Predicts More Advanced Mean Length of Utterance at 5 years of age in the FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study
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Poster A106 in Poster Session A, Tuesday, October 24, 10:15 am - 12:00 pm CEST, Espace Vieux-Port
Kiia Kurila1,2, Pihla Saaristo1,2, Essi Vastamäki1,2, Aura Yli-Savola1,2, Anna Kautto1, Jetro Tuulari2,3, Linnea Karlsson2,4,5, Hasse Karlsson2,4, Elina Mainela-Arnold1,2,5; 1University of Turku, Finland, 2FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study, Turku Brain and Mind Center, University of Turku, Finland, 3Turku Collegium for Science, Medicine and Technology, University of Turku, Finland, 4Centre for Population Health Research, Turku University Hospital and University of Turku, 5Department of Clinical Medicine, Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Turku University Hospital and University of Turku, 6The Centre of Excellence for Learning Dynamics and Intervention Research (InterLearn)
Background: This poster will present a study evaluating the extent to which the grey matter volume of developing brains associate with individual differences in a functional language outcome. A long-standing hypothesis states that neural development during language learning involves leftward lateralization, and that lack of leftward asymmetry of language areas is related to poor language development in children. Alternatively, the procedural memory hypothesis proposes that procedural memory, supported by frontal-basal ganglia circuits, is integral to language development. In deed, behavioral studies suggest that performance on tasks measuring procedural memory significantly differ between children with language disorder and typically developing peers (Lum et al., 2014), motivating the study of basal ganglia structures in relation to individual differences in language abilities. We chose a functional language measure, mean length of utterance (MLU) calculated from speech sample, to represent language skills. Arguably, functional measures from everyday situations best represent children’s language abilities. Method: Participants were children from the FinnBrain Study who participated in MRI and language visits at 5 yrs of age (n=142). We chose three regions of inferior frontal gyrus: pars opercularis (BA45), pars triangularis (BA44) and pars orbitalis (BA47), superior temporal gyrus (BA22) and middle temporal gyrus (BA21) as well as subcortical basal ganglia (putamen and caudate nucleus) as regions of interest (ROI) as well as asymmetry indices (AI) of those areas (obtained with FreeSurfer). We conducted multiple stepwise linear regression analysis with backward selection to evaluate if variance in children’s MLU is predicted by ROI volumes and AIs. Results: Results of cortical ROI analysis indicated that the smaller volume of the left middle temporal gyrus predicted longer MLU’s. No significant predictors of MLU were found in cortical AI analysis. Results of subcortical ROI and AI analysis indicated no significant predictors of MLU. Conclusion: Even though the asymmetry indices did not associate with language use, the leftward lateralization hypothesis was partially supported as the left middle temporal gyrus volume was related to functional language usage measured by MLU. Recent publications provide evidence that all language-related ROI volumes are not leftward asymmetric in typically developing matured brains (Kong et al., 2018). We suggest that perhaps more mature asymmetry indexed by smaller volume in language-related ROIs relates to better functional language abilities in children. Evidence for the procedural memory hypothesis was not found in our analyses. Reference: Kong, X.-Z., Mathias, S. R., Guadalupe, T., ENIGMA Laterality Working Group, Glahn, D. C., Franke, B., Crivello, F., Tzourio-Mazoyer, N., Fisher, S. E., Thompson, P. M., & Francks, C. (2018). Mapping cortical brain asymmetry in 17,141 healthy individuals worldwide via the ENIGMA consortium. PNAS, 115(22), E5154–E5163. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1718418115. Lum, J. A., Conti-Ramsden, G., Morgan, A. T., & Ullman, M. T. (2014). Procedural learning deficits in specific language impairment (SLI): a meta-analysis of serial reaction time task performance. Cortex, 51(100), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2013.10.011
Topic Areas: Language Development/Acquisition,