# Neuroimaging

> **NIH NIH P50** · UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO · 2023 · $247,484

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
The overall objective of the current project is to determine how brain systems are altered in children and youth
who are experiencing difficulties in each of reading and math specifically. Recent research suggests that control
processes that aid in goal-oriented behaviors and task performance, known as executive function, are often
altered in children and youth who are having reading and/or math difficulties. Specific regions of the brain, mainly
in the prefrontal cortex, play a prominent role in executive function. These executive regions act by altering or
modulating activity in other brain regions, consistent with their role in control processes. Yet prior studies have
mainly focused on brain regions more specifically involved in reading and math rather than regions involved in
executive processes. The first main aim of the proposed project will examine how connectivity between these
prefrontal brain regions and areas of the brain that are important for each of these domains — left temporo-
parietal regions with regards to reading, and the right intraparietal sulcus with regards to math — may be altered
in individuals with reading and math difficulties, respectively. To do so, 160 individuals aged 10-16 who are likely
to have reading and/or math difficulties will undergo functional neuroimaging while they perform three types of
tasks – a reading task, a math task, and an executive control task. These data will be combined with a previously
collected sample of approximately the same size who performed the same neuroimaging tasks, but who are
more typically developing. Whether patterns of connectivity from prefrontal areas across each of the three tasks
differ in those who have reading difficulties as compared to those who do not will be determined, with parallel
analyses performed for those who have math difficulties versus those who do not. Of interest will be the degree
to which disrupted connectivity is similar or distinct in individuals with reading difficulties as compared to those
with math difficulties. A second main aim is to test the hypothesis that such connectivity is influenced by an
individual’s level of reading and/or math anxiety. Not much is known about the neural underpinnings of these
academically-related aspects of anxiety. In addition, this aim will also examine how these aspects of anxiety
influence connectivity from prefrontal executive regions to brain regions involved in emotional processing. Finally,
the third aim of this project will take a novel computational approach of graphing the brain network during each
task and while participants are at rest. These networks will be computationally “lesioned” by iteratively removing
nodes to determine how the overall functioning of the network is altered by such removal. This approach will
isolate those regions that most critically distinguish individuals with and without reading difficulties and likewise
with or without math difficulties. The results of this pro...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10758088
- **Project number:** 2P50HD027802-31
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO
- **Principal Investigator:** Marie T Banich
- **Activity code:** P50 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $247,484
- **Award type:** 2
- **Project period:** 1996-12-01 → 2028-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10758088

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10758088, Neuroimaging (2P50HD027802-31). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-28 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10758088. Licensed CC0.

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