Quantitative MRI reveals differences in striatal myelin in children with DLD

  1. Saloni Krishnan  Is a corresponding author
  2. Gabriel J Cler
  3. Harriet J Smith
  4. Hanna E Willis
  5. Salomi S Asaridou
  6. Máiréad P Healy
  7. Daniel Papp
  8. Kate E Watkins
  1. Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, Dept of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
  2. Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham Hill, United Kingdom
  3. Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington, United States
  4. MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
  5. Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, John Radcliffe Hospital, United Kingdom
  6. Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
  7. NeuroPoly Lab, Biomedical Engineering Department, Polytechnique Montreal, Canada
  8. Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, FMRIB Centre, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neuroscience, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
4 figures, 2 tables and 2 additional files

Figures

Figure 1 with 2 supplements
Brain areas showing reduced Magnetization Transfer saturation (MTsat) in developmental language disorder (DLD).

Coloured maps resampled and overlaid on the fsaverage surface (reconstructed using the HCP workbench) show TD > DLD differences in MTsat values (whole-brain corrected threshold p < 0.05). Axial …

Figure 1—figure supplement 1
Whole-brain typically developing (TD) > developmental language disorder (DLD) differences (thresholded at p < 0.05) when excluding children with nonverbal IQs < 85 in Magnetization Transfer saturation (MTsat) values.

See legend to Figure 1 for details.

Figure 1—figure supplement 2
Relationship between MTsat values in the caudate nucleus by age and total intracranial volume (TIV) in typically developing (TD) children and those with developmental language disorder (DLD).

Average MTsat in the left and right caudate nucleus for individual participants are plotted against age or TIV. Dots show data for individual participants, colour represents group (orange - DLD, …

Figure 2 with 1 supplement
Brain areas showing reduced R1 in developmental language disorder (DLD).

Coloured maps resampled and overlaid on the fsaverage surface (reconstructed using the HCP workbench) show TD > DLD differences in R1 maps (whole-brain corrected threshold p < 0.05). Axial slices …

Figure 2—figure supplement 1
Whole-brain typically developing (TD) > developmental language disorder (DLD) differences (thresholded at p < 0.05) when excluding children with nonverbal IQs <85 in R1 values.

See legend to Figure 2 for details.

Figure 3 with 1 supplement
Brain areas showing conjoint reductions in MTsat and R1 in developmental language disorder (DLD).

Coloured maps resampled and overlaid on the fsaverage surface (reconstructed using the HCP workbench) show convergence of TD > DLD differences in MTsat and R1 maps thresholded at p < 0.05. Axial …

Figure 3—figure supplement 1
Average MTsat, R1, and R2* values in typically developing (TD) and developmental language disorder (DLD) groups are shown using a coloured heat map (hotter colours show higher values).

Maps are overlaid on the fsaverage surface reconstructed using the HCP workbench. Left (L) and right (R) lateral and medial surfaces are shown on the left and right side of the figure respectively.

Figure 4 with 1 supplement
Correlation between language proficiency and Magnetization Transfer saturation (MTsat) values in the left caudate nucleus.

Coloured maps are overlaid on axial slices through the average MTsat image from all participants (top) showing significant relationship subcortically in the left caudate nucleus. Average MTsat …

Figure 4—figure supplement 1
Whole-brain correlation of multi-parameter mapping (MPM) values with language proficiency (thresholded at p < 0.05).

See legend to Figure 4 for details.

Tables

Table 1
Descriptive data for the typically developing (TD), developmental language disorder (DLD), and history of speech and language (HSL) difficulties groups.

Means are shown below, with standard deviations in parentheses. Language proficiency and memory factor scores are derived from a factor analysis (for a full description, see Krishnan et al., 2021). …

TDDLDHSLGroup differences
Age (years)12.41
(1.62)
12.48
(1.80)
12.40
(1.67)
None
Gender28 F:28 M11 F:22 M3 F:17 MN/A
Total intracranial volume (mm3)1329.24 (145.98)1345.39 (145.43)1411.51 (158.99)None
Language proficiency0.8 (0.45)−0.95 (0.55)−0.06 (0.48)TD > HSL > DLD
Memory0.58 (0.80)−0.74 (0.79)0.07 (0.77)TD > HSL > DLD
Nonverbal IQ12.3 (1.91)8.65 (2.09)11.0 (1.83)TD > HSL > DLD
Table 2
Group mean and standard deviation of parameter values in grey and white matter in children who were typically developing (TD), had developmental language disorder (DLD), and published mean and standard deviation in adults, mean 24.2 years, SD 1.6 years (Weiskopf et al., 2013).

Values in bold indicate a global difference between the TD and DLD groups (p < 0.05), uncorrected for multiple comparisons.

TDDLDPublished values
Grey matter
MT0.828 (0.018)0.821 (0.019)0.794 (0.014)
R10.615 (0.012)0.608 (0.014)0.609 (0.008)
R2*15.192 (0.437)15.234 (0.544)15.200 (0.400)
White matter
MT1.720 (0.052)1.714 (0.053)1.764 (0.066)
R10.973 (0.025)0.962 (0.025)1.036 (0.036)
R2*20.672 (0.659)20.679 (0.704)21.000 (0.800)

Additional files

Supplementary file 1

Supplementary information.

(a) Typically developing (TD) > developmental language disorder (DLD) differences in Magnetization Transfer saturation (MTsat) maps. Nonparametric randomisation analysis with threshold-free cluster enhancement was used to compare groups. A whole-brain corrected threshold of p < 0.05 was used.

(b) TD > DLD conjoint differences in R1 and MTsat.

(c) Differences in age and language scores between the selected and excluded children who were TD or had DLD.

https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/74242/elife-74242-supp1-v1.docx
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https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/74242/elife-74242-transrepform1-v1.docx

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