Figures and data in Fiber-specific structural properties relate to reading skills in children and adolescents

Version of Record: January 5, 2023
Accepted Manuscript: December 28, 2022

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Steven Lee Meisler

John DE Gabrieli

(2022)
Fiber-specific structural properties relate to reading skills in children and adolescents

eLife 11:e82088.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.82088
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Figures
Tables
Additional files

4 figures, 2 tables and 3 additional files

Figures

Figure 1

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Methodological overview of the study.

Top: description of primary and secondary analyses. Bottom: schematic depicting interpretations of changes in examined metrics. Depictions of bundles, axons, and neurites are not drawn to scale. …

Figure 2 with 2 supplements

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Age-standardized TOWRE subscores of all participants.

Each dot represents a participant, color-coded by group assignment. Dashed lines mark the score cutoffs for the two reading proficiency groups. Since scores are discrete and not unique, some dots …

Figure 2—figure supplement 1

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Correlations between continuous phenotypic and neuroimaging variables.

Correlation coefficients are reported as Spearman’s $ρ$ . p-values were FDR Benjamini–Hochberg adjusted across tests. *p<0.05; **p<0.001; ***p<1e-5. TOWRE, Tests of Word Reading Efficiency composite …

Figure 2—figure supplement 2

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ANOVA results for site-wise comparisons between phenotypic and neuroimaging metrics.

Only metrics associated with a significant between-sites ANOVA (p<0.05) are plotted. For t-tests between sites, *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<1e-03, and ****p<1e-04. SES, socioeconomic status; ICV, …

Figure 3 with 4 supplements

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Significant fixels ( $q_{F D R} < 0.05$ ) for relating fiber density and cross-section product (FDC) to raw composite Tests of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE) scores, colored by effect size ( $Δ R_{a d j}^{2}$ ).

Model confounds included a spline fit for age and linear fits for sex, site, neighbor correlation, and log(ICV). Top and bottom panels are left and right hemispheres, respectively. Sagittal slices …

Figure 3—figure supplement 1

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Significant fixels ( $q_{F D R} < 0.05$ ) relating fiber density and cross-section product (FDC) to raw composite Tests of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE) scores, colored by the beta estimates (top) and direction (bottom; red, LR; green, AP; blue, SI).

Model confounds included a spline fit for age and linear fits for sex, site, neighbor correlation, and log(ICV). Only the left hemisphere is shown. Sagittal slices go from lateral-to-medial. The …

Figure 3—figure supplement 2

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Plots of the set of tracts in which the strongest effect sizes ( $Δ R_{a d j}^{2} > 0.028$ ) were achieved for relating fiber density and cross-section product (FDC) to Tests of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE) scores (see Table 2).

All tracts were in the left hemisphere. Sagittal slices go from lateral-to-medial. Tracts were segmented from and are plotted on top of the fiber orientation distribution (FOD) template.

Figure 3—figure supplement 3

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Significant fixels ( $q_{F D R} < 0.05$ ) relating fiber cross-section (FC; top), and fiber density (FD; bottom) to raw composite Tests of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE) scores, colored by direction (red, LR; green, AP; blue, SI).

Model confounds included a spline fit for age and linear fits for sex, site, and neighbor correlation. Additionally, FC included an additional regressor for log(ICV). Only the left hemisphere is …

Figure 3—figure supplement 4

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Significant fixels ( $q_{F D R} < 0.05$ ) relating fiber density and cross-section product (FDC) to raw Sight Word Efficiency (SWE; top) and Phonemic Decoding Efficiency (PDE; bottom) subscores, colored by effect size ( $Δ R_{a d j}^{2}$ ).

Model confounds included a spline fit for age and linear fits for sex, site, neighbor correlation, and log(ICV). Only the left hemisphere is shown. Sagittal slices go from lateral-to-medial. The …

Figure 4

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Significant fixels ( $q_{F D R} < 0.05$ ) for relating neurite orientation density and dispersion index (NODDI) metrics to raw composite Tests of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE) scores, colored by direction (red, LR; green, AP; blue, SI).

Model confounds included a spline fit for age and linear fits for sex, site, neighbor correlation, and log(ICV). Top and bottom panels are the indexes for orientation dispersion (ODI) and neurite …

Tables

Table 1

Phenotypic and neuroimaging summary statistics in all participants and within the two reading proficiency groups.

17 and 93 participants were lacking socioeconomic and WISC scores, respectively, and were ignored for the corresponding rows. Values are listed as mean (standard error of the mean). For group …

Metric	All (n = 983)	TR (n = 570)	RD (n = 102)	Effect size
Sex (M/F)	617/366	355/215	59/43	Φ = 0.0235
Age (years)	11.16 (0.10)	11.38 (0.14)	10.56 (0.27)	d = 0.258*
Handedness (EHI)	61.78 (1.58)	62.19 (2.05)	62.91 (5.05)	d = 0.015
Handedness (L/A/R)	74/128/781	42/66/462	8/17/77	Φ = 0.047
SES (years parental edu.)	17.63 (0.10)	18.13 (0.11)	16.93 (0.32)	d = 0.429†
ICV (cm³)	1540 (5.130)	1559 (6.735)	1501 (12.47)	d = 0.370†
WISC VSI	102.08 (0.552)	105.72 (0.714)	97.82 (1.497)	d = 0.494†
WISC VCI	104.61 (0.542)	109.26 (0.658)	98.18 (1.414)	d = 0.750†
TOWRE	97.93 (0.56)	109.49 (0.45)	70.48 (0.80)	d = 3.74†
Global FD	0.285 (6.26e-4)	0.287 (7.66e-4)	0.280 (2.53e-3)	d = 0.337*
Global log(FC)	0.050 (2.15e-3)	0.059 (2.73e-3)	0.030 (5.92e-3)	d = 0.455†
Mean motion (mm)	0.44 (7.89e-3)	0.44 (0.01)	0.44 (0.03)	d = 4.27e-3
Quality (Neighbor Corr.)	0.756 (1.58e-3)	0.760 (2.08e-3)	0.745 (5.17e-3)	d = 0.291*

TR = typically reading group; RD = reading disability group; EHI = Edinburgh Handedness Inventory; SES = socioeconomic status; ICV = intracranial volume; TOWRE = Tests of Word Reading Efficiency composite score, age-normalized; WISC VSI = Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children visuospatial index, age-normalized; WISC VCI = Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children verbal comprehension index, age-normalized; FD = fiber density; FC = fiber cross-section. FD and FC are unitless.

Table 2

Intersections of white matter tracts with significant fixels for correlations between fiber density and cross-section product (FDC) and reading skill.

The number of fixels is present for two significance thresholds. For tracts that exist bilaterally, results are given in the form of left/right. Tracts in which the maximum effect size ( $Δ R_{a d j}^{2}$ ) exceeded …

Tract	N fixels ( $q_{F D R} < 0.05$ )	N fixels ( $q_{F D R} < 0.001$ )	Max effect size ( $Δ R_{a d j}^{2}$ )
AF	2446/1571	186/0	0.030/0.020
ATR	114/297	0/0	0.017/0.017
CA	314	2	0.018
CC_1	53	0	0.015
CC_2	1351	0	0.018
CC_3	197	0	0.015
CC_4	1770	3	0.021
CC_5	1484	0	0.015
CC_6	2022	32	0.024
CC_7	250	0	0.018
CG	298/227	0/0	0.018/0.019
CST	2561/1789	90/109	0.024/0.024
FPT	3171/2809	214/221	0.024/0.024
FX	348/300	6/6	0.024/0.024
ICP	675/614	2/25	0.023/0.022
IFOF	1205/1056	26/0	0.024/0.018
ILF	811/422	27/0	0.021/0.019
MCP	2043	22	0.022
MLF	1631/824	101/0	0.029/0.020
OR	585/596	18/0	0.021/0.016
POPT	2785/2103	118/119	0.024/0.021
SCP	1453/1378	85/76	0.029/0.021
SLF I	668/903	5/4	0.019/0.020
SLF II	918/1015	50/0	0.029/0.020
SLF III	741/415	116/0	0.030/0.019
ST_FO	185/125	0/0	0.019/0.013
ST_OCC	862/872	26/2	0.024/0.018
ST_PAR	1857/1295	15/0	0.024/0.020
ST_POSTC	1463/582	9/0	0.020/0.016
ST_PREC	1854/671	17/2	0.024/0.016
ST_PREF	825/537	0/0	0.019/0.017
ST_PREM	214/95	0/0	0.019/0.018
STR	1035/531	3/2	0.017/0.014
T_OCC	625/617	17/0	0.021/0.017
T_PAR	1436/685	4/0	0.020/0.016
T_POSTC	1086/383	0/0	0.017/0.015
T_PREC	1497/607	5/2	0.021/0.014
T_PREF	748/505	0/0	0.018/0.017
T_PREM	51/143	0/0	0.012/0.014
UF	665/406	23/0	0.021/0.016

.
AF = arcuate fasciculus; MLF = middle longitudinal fasciculus; SCP = superior cerebellar peduncles; SLF = superior longitudinal fasciculus.
Please refer to Figure 3 of the TractSeg publication (Wasserthal et al., 2018a) for a full list of the tract abbreviations.

Additional files

MDAR checklist: https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/82088/elife-82088-mdarchecklist1-v2.docx
Download elife-82088-mdarchecklist1-v2.docx
Transparent reporting form: https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/82088/elife-82088-transrepform1-v2.pdf
Download elife-82088-transrepform1-v2.pdf
Supplementary file 1 ANOVA results for site-wise comparisons between phenotypic and neuroimaging metrics. Group comparison columns list significant t-statistics. *p<0.05 for the ANOVA between all sites. Post hoc t-tests were only run if the between-sites ANOVA was significant. Only significant t-statistics (p<0.05) are shown in the table. A positive t-statistic denotes Site 1 > Site 2. EHI, Edinburgh Handedness Inventory; SES, socioeconomic status; ICV, intracranial volume; TOWRE, Tests of Word Reading Efficiency composite score, age-normalized; WISC VSI, Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children visuospatial index, age-normalized; WISC VCI, Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children verbal comprehension index, age-normalized; gFD, globally averaged fiber density; gFC, globally averaged fiber cross-section.: https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/82088/elife-82088-supp1-v2.pdf
Download elife-82088-supp1-v2.pdf

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Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

Figures

Methodological overview of the study.

Age-standardized TOWRE subscores of all participants.

Correlations between continuous phenotypic and neuroimaging variables.

ANOVA results for site-wise comparisons between phenotypic and neuroimaging metrics.

Significant fixels ( $q_{F D R} < 0.05$ ) for relating fiber density and cross-section product (FDC) to raw composite Tests of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE) scores, colored by effect size ( $Δ R_{a d j}^{2}$ ).

Significant fixels ( $q_{F D R} < 0.05$ ) relating fiber density and cross-section product (FDC) to raw composite Tests of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE) scores, colored by the beta estimates (top) and direction (bottom; red, LR; green, AP; blue, SI).

Plots of the set of tracts in which the strongest effect sizes ( $Δ R_{a d j}^{2} > 0.028$ ) were achieved for relating fiber density and cross-section product (FDC) to Tests of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE) scores (see Table 2).

Significant fixels ( $q_{F D R} < 0.05$ ) relating fiber cross-section (FC; top), and fiber density (FD; bottom) to raw composite Tests of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE) scores, colored by direction (red, LR; green, AP; blue, SI).

Significant fixels ( $q_{F D R} < 0.05$ ) relating fiber density and cross-section product (FDC) to raw Sight Word Efficiency (SWE; top) and Phonemic Decoding Efficiency (PDE; bottom) subscores, colored by effect size ( $Δ R_{a d j}^{2}$ ).

Significant fixels ( $q_{F D R} < 0.05$ ) for relating neurite orientation density and dispersion index (NODDI) metrics to raw composite Tests of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE) scores, colored by direction (red, LR; green, AP; blue, SI).

Tables

Phenotypic and neuroimaging summary statistics in all participants and within the two reading proficiency groups.

Intersections of white matter tracts with significant fixels for correlations between fiber density and cross-section product (FDC) and reading skill.

Additional files

MDAR checklist

Transparent reporting form

Supplementary file 1

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Methodological overview of the study.

Age-standardized TOWRE subscores of all participants.

Correlations between continuous phenotypic and neuroimaging variables.

ANOVA results for site-wise comparisons between phenotypic and neuroimaging metrics.

Phenotypic and neuroimaging summary statistics in all participants and within the two reading proficiency groups.

Intersections of white matter tracts with significant fixels for correlations between fiber density and cross-section product (FDC) and reading skill.

MDAR checklist

Transparent reporting form

Supplementary file 1