Dysfunctional auditory gamma oscillations in developmental dyslexia: A potential target for a tACS-based intervention.

Abstract

Interventions in developmental dyslexia typically consist of orthography-based reading and writing trainings. However, their efficacy is limited and, consequently, the symptoms persist into adulthood. Critical for this lack of efficacy is the still ongoing debate about the core deficit in dyslexia and its underlying neurobiological causes. There is ample evidence on phonological as well as auditory temporal processing deficits in dyslexia and, on the other hand, cortical gamma oscillations in the auditory cortex as functionally relevant for the extraction of linguistically meaningful information units from the acoustic signal. The present work aims to shed more light on the link between auditory gamma oscillations, phonological awareness, and literacy skills in dyslexia. By mean of EEG, individual gamma frequencies were assessed in a group of children and adolescents diagnosed with dyslexia as well as in an age-matched control group with typical literacy skills. Furthermore, phonological awareness was assessed in both groups, while in dyslexic participants also reading and writing performance was measured. We found significantly lower gamma peak frequencies as well as lower phonological awareness scores in dyslexic participants compared to age-matched controls. Additionally, results showed a positive correlation between the individual gamma frequency and phonological awareness. Our data suggest a hierarchical structure of neural gamma oscillations, phonological awareness, and literacy skills. Thereby, the results emphasize altered gamma oscillation not only as a core deficit in dyslexia but also as a potential target for future causal interventions. We discuss these findings considering non-invasive brain stimulation techniques and suggest transcranial alternating current stimulation as a promising approach to normalize dysfunctional oscillations in dyslexia.