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. 2021 Jul;54(2):4621-4637.
doi: 10.1111/ejn.15347. Epub 2021 Jun 23.

Left lateralization of neonatal caudate microstructure affects emerging language development at 24 months

Ai Peng Tan  1 , Zhen Ming Ngoh  2 , Shayne Siok Peng Yeo  2 , Dawn Xin Ping Koh  2   3 , Peter Gluckman  2 , Yap Seng Chong  2 , Lourdes Mary Daniel  4   5 , Anne Rifkin-Graboi  6 , Marielle V Fortier  7 , Anqi Qiu  8 , Michael Meaney  2   9   10
Affiliations

Left lateralization of neonatal caudate microstructure affects emerging language development at 24 months

Ai Peng Tan et al. Eur J Neurosci. 2021 Jul.

Abstract

The complex interaction between brain and behaviour in language disorder is well established. Yet to date, the imaging literature in the language disorder field has continued to pursue heterogeneous and relatively small clinical cross-sectional samples, with emphasis on cortical structures and volumetric analyses of subcortical brain structures. In our current work, we aimed to go beyond this state of knowledge to focus on the microstructural features of subcortical brain structures (specifically the caudate nucleus) in a large cohort of neonates and study its association with emerging language skills at 24 months. Variations in neonatal brain microstructure could be interpreted as a proxy for in utero brain development. As language development is highly dependent on cognitive function and home literacy environment, we also examined their effect on the caudate-language function relationship utilizing a conditional process model. Our findings suggest that emerging language development at 24 months is influenced by the degree of left lateralization of neonatal caudate microstructure, indexed by diffusion tensor imaging (DTI)-derived fractional anisotropy (FA). FA is an indirect measure of neuronal and dendritic density within grey matter structures. We also found that the caudate-language function relationship is partially mediated by cognitive function. The conditional indirect effect of left caudate FA on language composite score through cognitive function was only statistically significant at low levels of home literacy score (-1 standard deviation [SD]). The authors proposed that this may be related to 'compensatory' development of cognitive skills in less favourable home literacy environments.

Keywords: caudate nucleus; emerging language development; fractional anisotropy.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no financial relationships relevant to this article to disclose. The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Preprocessing and region‐of‐interest (ROI) analysis of diffusion data. Square‐shaped ROIs (red square: right caudate head; green square: left caudate head) were placed at the centre of the caudate heads. At the level of the basal ganglia/striatum, the caudate heads were defined laterally to the frontal horns of the lateral ventricles (LV) and bounded postero‐laterally by the anterior limb of the internal capsule (ALIC; purple line). The ALIC is an easily identifiable white matter tract on FA maps, seen as a high‐intensity structure (due to its high anisotropy) between the lentiform nucleus (LN) and caudate head
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
(a) Conceptual and (b) statistical models illustrating hypothesized conditional direct and indirect effects for left caudate FA (L CN FA; X), cognition composite score (M), childhood literacy score (W) and language composite score (Y). a1, effect of X on M; a2, effect of W on M; a3, interaction effect between X and W; b, effect of M on Y; c1, effect of X on Y; c2, effect of W on Y; c3, interaction effect between X and W; iY and iM, regression constants; L CN FA, left caudate FA; M, mediator; W, moderator; X, predictor variable; Y, outcome variable
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
(a) Scatter plot of BSID‐III language composite score and FA of the left caudate nucleus shows a negative association between the two variables. (b) Scatter plot of BSID‐III language composite score and FA of the right caudate nucleus shows a positive association between the two variables
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Conditional direct and indirect effects at different levels of childhood literacy scores
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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