Neural correlates of sequence learning in children with developmental dyslexia

Developmental Dyslexia (DD) is a condition in which reading accuracy and/or fluency falls substantially below what is expected based on the individuals age, general level of cognitive ability, and educational opportunities. The procedural circuit deficit hypothesis (PDH) proposes that DD may be largely explained in terms of alterations of the cortico‐basal ganglia procedural memory system (in particular of the striatum) whereas the (hippocampus‐dependent) declarative memory system is intact, and may serve a compensatory role in the condition. The present study was designed to test this hypothesis. Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging, we examined the functional and structural brain correlates of sequence‐specific procedural learning (SL) on the serial reaction time task, in 17 children with DD and 18 typically developing (TD) children. The study was performed over 2 days with a 24‐h interval between sessions. In line with the PDH, the DD group showed less activation of the striatum during the processing of sequential statistical regularities. These alterations predicted the amount of SL at day 2, which in turn explained variance in children's reading fluency. Additionally, reduced hippocampal activation predicted larger SL gains between day 1 and day 2 in the TD group, but not in the DD group. At the structural level, caudate nucleus volume predicted the amount of acquired SL at day 2 in the TD group, but not in the DD group. The findings encourage further research into factors that promote learning in children with DD, including through compensatory mechanisms.