New Study: Brain Cysts & Nonverbal Learning Disability

"Corey Seehus, Brain Cells Inc, USA" by GE Healthcare

Finally, some new research on nonverbal learning disability: In the April 26, 2011 issue of the Journal of Child Neurology, a new study conducted at Michigan State University (USA) reports that brain cysts have been detected in a significant number of study participants with NLD.  These results came as a surprise to lead investigators, and they are a significant finding for a neurological disorder that could use some close attention.

In the article, Presence of Cysts on Magnetic Resonance Images (MRIs) in Children with Aspergers Syndrome and Nonverbal Learning Disabilities, Margaret Semrud-Clikeman, Ph.D and Jodene Fine, Ph.D state that they placed 78 children into three disparate groups: those previously diagnosed with NLD (28), those previously diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome (26) and a control group composed of kids who had no symptoms of either disorder (24). Each participant was given standard neuropsych testing, including the Weshscler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence  and Woodcock-Johnson Achievement Test-III, and underwent a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) procedure.

What they discovered was that one-fourth of the individuals with NLD—male and female, between the ages of 9 and 13 years—had benign cysts or legions “in the occipital/cerebellar or parietal regions” of their brains. Only one participant in the Aspergers group and one in the control group had a benign brain cyst present.

While it was expected that children with nonverbal learning disabilities would show structural differences that could be measured with advanced data analytic techniques,  it was not expected that these children  would show gross abnormalities readily detectable by neuroradiological review…[or]…that these structural abnormalities would be present to a larger extent in consecutively recruited children with nonverbal learning disabilities compared with those with Aspergers syndrome in controls.

It’s interesting that these cysts were found in regions of the brain associated with visual-spatial perceptions that people with NLD have difficulty with but those with AS generally do not. Semrud-Clikeman and Fine acknowledge that more research is needed to identify the causes of NLD and explain the role these cysts and lesions may play within the disorder. They also have not determined what’s going on inside the brains of the remaining three-fourths majority of children with NLD who took part in the study.

We should all be encouraged by this research; however, more studies need to be done on adults with NLD as well as children. Please press on Drs. Semrud-Clikeman and Fine.

[This article is expensive to download from the Internet, but you can access it at a college  or university library that carries the Journal of Child Neurology. If you don't have an academic library near-by, perhaps you could get together with other NLD-ers or parents to purchase the download and share it! ]