Dyslexia is a difficulty in reading unrelatedto sensory or intellectual deficit. This reading difficulty has been traditionally attributed to an impairment in thephonological system, i.e., the mental manipulation of the sounds in language. Over the last two decades, compelling experimental evidencehas repeatedly reported deficits in visual attention and executive functions in dyslexia, suggesting a causal role for thesecognitive abilities. The dissertation aims to unveil theneurocognitive impairments underlying dyslexia, with a special focus on visualattention and visual coding.
Three research projects conducted during the PhD aimed to address the following researchquestions: a) Is there a visual attention deficit related to the readingimpairment in dyslexia? b) What is the neurobiological mechanism underlyingthis deficit in terms of large-scale brain network connectivity?c) How does a specific reading training affect the connectivity of these brainnetworks?
English speaking children aged between 8 and12 participated in the studies. Overall, the results point towards a crucialrole of visual attention in dyslexia. Theneuroimaging results suggest the existence of abnormal connectivity patterns inlarge-scale whole-brain networks related to visual attention and executivefunction in dyslexia.
Bio:
Aftercompleting his BA in Psychology and Master's in Neurosciencefrom the University of Barcelona, Nikolay joined the Educational NeuroimagingGroup in September 2019. During the last 4 years he has been studyingthe involvement of basic cognitive abilities in reading and dyslexia. His research focuses on large-scale brain networksunderlying language, attention, and visual processing from aneurocomputational perspective.
