What is Dyslexia?
Dyslexia, also known as reading disability, impacts how the brain process languages. People with dyslexia have normal intelligence and vision, but they have trouble reading and deciphering language. [5] They have difficulties in recognizing words accurately or reading sentences fluently, and often have issues with spelling mistakes. Dyslexia have a wide range of symptoms, and is different from person to person.
What are some symptoms of dyslexia?
What causes dyslexia?
In the past century, people have wrongly understood dyslexia as a problem from a particular part of the brain, but recent studies have suggested that dyslexia is due to disrupted connections in the brain. During reading, there are sensory hubs called the connectome that serves as a traffic controller system to gather different sensory information. (As shown below)[8] For dyslexics, there are some malfunction in this sensory system. Dyslexia is linked with genes that affect how brain processes reading and language and tends to run in families. The genes that are reported to associate with Dyslexia are DCDC2, KIAA0319 and DYX1C1. The primary focus of this website will be on DYX1C1.
Connectivities normal people have but dyslexics don't have.
Wang et al, 2018, Pediatrics and Neonatology
Wang et al, 2018, Pediatrics and Neonatology
Dyslexics are known to be more creative
Even though dyslexics are bad at reading, many reported that dyslexics are generally better at problem solving, graphic thinking, entrepreneurship... They are many successful and famous people who are/were dyslexics.
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What is Creativity?
Creativity is the ability to create something new and valuable. Professor Richard Foster at Yale University School of Management said that a key part of creativity is being able to find associations between different fields of knowledge. [6] Researchers have recently gained insights on high creativity and low creativity brain connections as shown in graphs below. [7]
Low creative brain network vs High creative brain network
Beaty, 2018, PNAS
Beaty, 2018, PNAS
Gap in knowledge
Behavioral studies and real world examples have showed that there is a strong correlation between dyslexia and creativity, could there be a molecular or physiological explanation on why dyslexics are more creative?
To understand this question, this website will use the Dyslexia relating gene DYX1C1 to understand the relationship between dyslexia and creativity.
Genetics of Dyslexia- DYX1C1
Through family based linkage analysis, scientists were able to identify several genes related to Dyslexia including DYX1C1, DCDC2 and KIAA0319. These mutations are found to impair neuron signaling and impair neuronal migration during brain development, causing neurons to end up at a different location than expected. Read more about the DYX1C1 gene here.
Click around to find out more!
Cited information
[1]Dyslexia. (2017, July 22). Retrieved from https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/dyslexia/symptoms-causes/syc-20353552
[2]Bates, T., Lind, P., Luciano, M. et al. Dyslexia and DYX1C1: deficits in reading and spelling associated with a missense mutation. Mol Psychiatry 15, 1190–1196 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2009.120
[3]Tammimies, K. (2011) Molecular studies of dyslexia : regulation and function of DYX1C1 https://openarchive.ki.se/xmlui/handle/10616/40762
[4]Dyslexia in Focus - From Diagnosis to Student Success. (2019, November 1). Retrieved from https://learningtools.donjohnston.com/2019/07/dyslexia-in-focus/
[5]What Is Creativity? (2020, February 14). Retrieved from https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/what-is-creativity
[7]Beaty, R. E., Kenett, Y. N., Christensen, A. P., Rosenberg, M. D., Benedek, M., Chen, Q., … Silvia, P. J. (2018). Robust prediction of individual creative ability from brain functional connectivity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(5), 1087–1092. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1713532115
[8]Wang, H.-L. S., Wang, N. Y.-H., & Yeh, F.-C. (2019). Specifying the diffusion MRI connectome in Chinese-speaking children with developmental dyslexia and auditory processing deficits. Pediatrics & Neonatology, 60(3), 297–304. doi: 10.1016/j.pedneo.2018.07.016
images :
[1] Kaster, J. (2019, October 16). Students With Dyslexia Aren't Dumb. Teachers Can Help Them See That. - EdSurge News. Retrieved fromhttps://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-10-16-students-with-dyslexia-aren-t-dumb-teachers-can-help-them-see-that
[2] McCrystal Opticians & Dungannon, M. C. O. (2017, June 15). Dyslexic Characteristics (Children). Retrieved from http://www.mccrystalopticians.com/dyslexic-characteristics-children/
https://vrskipperlearningcenter.com/dyslexia-information/frequently-asked-questions-about-dyslexia/
This web page was produced as an assignment for Genetics 564, an undergraduate capstone course at UW-Madison.