Yonsei Med J.  2007 Jun;48(3):405-411. 10.3349/ymj.2007.48.3.405.

The Neuroradiological Findings of Children with Developmental Language Disorder

• Im SH
• Park ES
• Kim DY
• Song DH
• Lee JD

• KMID: 724094
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.3349/ymj.2007.48.3.405

Abstract

PURPOSE
To investigate the general characteristics of glucose metabolism distribution and the functional deficit in the brain of children with developmental language delay (DLD), we compared functional neuroradiological studies such as positron emission tomography (PET) of a patient group of DLD children and a control group of attention- deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) children. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Seventeen DLD children and 10 ADHD children under 10 years of age were recruited and divided into separate groups consisting of children less than 5 years of age or between 5 and 10 years of age. The PET findings of 4 DLD children and 6 control children whose ages ranged from 5 to 10 years were compared by Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM) analysis. RESULTS: All of the DLD children revealed grossly normal findings in brain MRIs, however, 87.5% of them showed grossly abnormal findings in their PET studies. Abnormal findings were most frequent in the thalamus. The patient group showed significantly decreased glucose metabolism in both frontal, temporal and right parietal areas (p < 0.005) and significantly increased metabolism in both occipital areas (p < 0.05) as compared to the control group. CONCLUSION: This study reveals that DLD children may show abnormal findings on functional neuroradiological studies, even though structural neuroradiological studies such as a brain MRI do not show any abnormal findings. Frequent abnormal findings on functional neuroradiological studies of DLD children, especially in the subcortical area, suggests that further research with quantitative assessments of functional neuroradiological studies recruiting more DLD children and age-matched normal controls could be helpful for understanding the pathophysiology of DLD and other disorders confined to the developmental disorder spectrum.

Keyword

Developmental language disorder; attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder; positron emission tomography; statistical parametric mapping

MeSH Terms

Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity/metabolism/*pathology
Basal Ganglia/abnormalities/metabolism/radionuclide imaging
Brain/*abnormalities/metabolism/radionuclide imaging
Caudate Nucleus/abnormalities/metabolism/radionuclide imaging
Cerebellum/abnormalities/metabolism/radionuclide imaging
Child
Child, Preschool
Glucose/metabolism
Humans
Language Development Disorders/metabolism/*pathology
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Positron-Emission Tomography
Thalamus/abnormalities/metabolism/radionuclide imaging

Figure

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  Fig. 1 Brain areas with significantly decreased glucose metabolism in DLD children as compared to ADHD controls (p < 0.005).

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  Fig. 2 Brain areas with significantly increased glucose metabolism in DLD children as compared to ADHD controls (p < 0.05).

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