Mother-Child Similarity in Brain Structures of the Reading Network

The NMR Kids Lab is very happy about our first 2022 article published in the FLUX special issue of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience entitled “Mother-child similarity in brain morphology: A comparison of structural characteristics of the brain’s reading network” .

In short, the human brain is a result of many complex, interacting processes. Intergenerational neuroimaging tests familial transfer effects on brain structure, function & behavior by investigating neural similarity in caregiver-child dyads (relevant to brain development & disorders). Here we assessed neural similarity & familial specificity in the human reading network through different measures of brain structure ( surface area, gyrification, sulcal morphology, gray matter volume and cortical thickness) in 69 mother-child dyads.

Significant mother-child structural brain similarity was observed in reading regions for lG, SA and GMV, but not CT. Structural brain similarity in lG, SA and GMV were specific to mother-child pairs. Structural brain similarity for SA & GMV was higher compared to CT.

A huge thank you for the great collaboration with the Numerical Cognition Laboratory of Prof. Daniel Ansari at the Department of Psychology at Western Ontario (Canada), which exemplary shows how one can make science better together!!! Congratulations to all authors involved.

Fehlbaum LV, Peters L, Dimanova P, Röell M, Borbás R, Ansari D, & Raschle NM (2022). Mother-child similarity in brain morphology: A comparison of structural characteristics of the brain’s reading network. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 101058. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2022.101058