The relationship between brain structure and proficiency in reading and mathematics in children, adolescents, and emerging adults

Abstract

Behavioral and brain imaging studies speak to commonalities between reading and math. Here, we investigated relationships between individual differences in reading and math ability (single word reading and calculation) with brain anatomy (cortical thickness and surface area) in 342 participants between 6–22 years of age from the NIH Pediatric MRI Database. We found no brain-behavioral correlations in the full sample. When dividing the dataset into three age-specific subgroups, cortical thickness of the left supramarginal gyrus (SMG) and fusiform gyrus (FG) correlated with reading ability in the oldest subgroup (15–22 years) only. Next, we tested unique contributions of these educational measures to neuroanatomy. Single word reading ability, age, and their interaction all contributed unique variance to cortical thickness in the left SMG and intraparietal sulcus (IPS). Age, and the interaction between age and reading, predicted cortical thickness in the left FG. However, regression analyses for math ability showed no relationships with cortical thickness; nor for math or reading ability with surface area. Overall, our results demonstrate relationships between cortical thickness and reading ability in emerging adults, but not in younger age groups. Surprisingly, there were no such relationships with math, and hence no convergence between the reading and math results.

Keywords

• Reading
• Math
• MRI
• Brain structure
• Cortical thickness
• Surface area