New clues about the biological underpinnings of dyslexia have confounded scientists’ old assumptions, opening fresh avenues of research that might one day help treat the world’s most common learning disorder.
Dyslexia, an often inherited condition that makes it difficult to read, spell, and recognize speech, has long been associated with dysfunction in the parts of the brain associated with interpreting words. But research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggests dyslexia’s roots are in fact much deeper, pointing to a more complicated disorder than previously thought.
“What’s striking is that the difference in neurons is very far-reaching across the brain,” said Guinevere Eden, director of Georgetown University’s Center for the Study of Learning, who was not involved in the research. “It’s not just the areas that we know are involved in reading; it’s also areas involved in face processing and object processing.”
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