Neural bases of phonological working memory in developmental language disorders

 描述(申请人提供)：语音工作记忆是在短期记忆中保持与语言相关的声音的机制。语音工作记忆是认知、发展和临床神经心理学以及言语-语言病理学的核心结构，在语言习得、词汇发展、阅读学习和语言理解中发挥着重要作用。语音工作记忆缺陷是许多发展性沟通障碍的特征，包括发育性语言障碍(特殊语言障碍)、发育性阅读障碍(阅读困难)、自闭症和唐氏综合症。即使在成年期，语音工作记忆缺陷仍然对患有发育性语言障碍的人的语言能力和心理社会功能有害。然而，之前还没有人尝试使用类似于临床敏感测量的任务来研究语音工作记忆的大脑基础，例如非单词重复。此外，对于发育性语言障碍个体的语音工作记忆障碍是如何由神经生理学或神经解剖学的差异引起的，几乎一无所知。相应地，本项目的第一个目标是确定临床语音工作记忆评估在具有典型语言能力的成年人的大脑中招募的标准化神经系统(目标1)。关键的是，我们将确定语音工作记忆的大脑基础是否与支持领域特定语言处理或领域一般认知能力的神经系统有关。这将有助于调和两种关于语音工作记忆在大脑中如何工作的相互竞争的理论，并为非单词重复测试的临床解释提供信息。该项目的第二个目标是检查患有持续性发展性语言障碍的成年人大脑中的语音工作记忆，包括它们与对照组的不同之处，以及神经反应的个体差异如何与语言能力的行为差异有关(目标2)。最后，我们将从较小的发育性语言障碍儿童样本中收集试点数据，以支持未来旨在了解发育性语言障碍儿童大脑差异的研究。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Phonological working memory is the mechanism by which language-relevant sounds are maintained in short- term memory. Phonological working memory is a core construct in cognitive, developmental, and clinical neuropsychology, as well as speech-language pathology, and plays an important role in language acquisition, vocabulary development, learning to read, and language comprehension. Phonological working memory deficits are characteristic of numerous developmental disorders of communication, including developmental language disorder (specific language impairment), developmental reading disorder (dyslexia), autism, and Down syndrome. Even in adulthood, phonological working memory deficits remain deleterious to the language abilities and psychosocial functioning of individuals with developmental language disorders. However, there has been no prior attempt to investigate the brain bases of phonological working memory using tasks analogous to clinically sensitive measures such as nonword repetition. Moreover, virtually nothing is known about how phonological working memory impairments in individuals with developmental language disorders arise from differences in neurophysiology or neuroanatomy. Correspondingly, the first goal of this project is to deter- mine the normative neural systems recruited by clinical phonological working memory assessments in the brains of adults with typical language abilities (Aim 1). Critically, we will ascertain whether the brain bases of phonological working memory are related to neural systems underlying domain-specific linguistic processing or domain-general cognitive abilities. This will help reconcile two competing theories about how phonological working memory works in the brain, as well as inform the clinical interpretation of nonword repetition tests. The second goal of this project is to examine phonological working memory in the brains of adults with persistent developmental language disorder, including how they differ from controls and how individual variability in neural responses is related to behavioral differences in language ability (Aim 2). Finally, we will collect pilot data from a smaller sample of children with developmental language disorder in support of future research aimed at understanding brain differences in children with developmental language disorders.