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-Click here for a Power Point Presentation - Summary of Current Research Activity Since establishing the Cognitive Neuroscience Lab at King's College in September 1998, I have been engaged in two areas of research with 45 of my students: the neural correlates of dyslexia, and differences in associative learning in ADHD and dyslexia. Application of the principles of associative learning in these two areas of learning differences has yielded a richer understanding of developmental change in simple learning and the prevalence of learning disabilities (estimated to be 20% nationally). Our major focus involves identifying the functional differences in cerebellar associative learning based on Pavlovian principles of classical conditioning. Using a well-documented procedure, eyeblink classical conditioning, we began testing college-aged individuals with documented evidence of dyslexia. This 30-minute, non-verbal procedure assesses the relative function of the cerebellum. The literature on dyslexia points to deficits in cerebellar function as a likely contributor to dyslexia. A clear difference emerged in our first studies, indicating dysfunction in learning at the neural level. These differences are distinctive, and consistent across individuals. The second phase of our study involved repeated testing over a five-day period. Once again, diagnosed dyslexics failed to achieve associative learning. Among the participants in the study were identical, mirror image twins. Only one twin has dyslexia, and he failed to achieve learning over the duration of the test. His twin mastered the learned association in one session, continuing to improve to 100% accuracy within three sessions. We have since repeated the study with 5 additional sets of identical twins. The results were consistent with our earlier findings. The third phase of our study assessed cerebellar differences in 150 children aged 5 to 12 years. These data are consistent with our previous work, and strongly reinforce our findings of dysfunction in the cerebellum as an indicator of dyslexia. An additional finding was the distinctively different performance of children with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, high functioning autism (PDD-NOS), or prenatal exposure to alcohol. We are presently able to screen children for one of four possible forms of learning disabilities within thirty minutes. The sense of excitement in the lab is infectious. These students are engaged in cutting edge research and have gained insight into the preparatory work required to insure reliable data. The research experience of our students at King's College results in competitive applications for graduate and medical school. I have had several opportunities to discuss our students with teaching faculty at Dartmouth, Penn State Hershey School of Medicine, Thomas Jefferson School of Medicine and Graduate Studies, SUNY Binghamton, and Northwestern. All have been impressed by our students and ask that we continue to direct them to their programs. Twenty-eight
student researchers in the Cognitive Neuroscience Lab have presented
34 papers at local, regional, national, and international meetings.
Our work has been reviewed in Science and other leading journals,
and was a feature article in USAToday. Many of these students are
currently engaged in graduate study and medical programs in universities
and colleges including Dartmouth (MD/PhD), University of Pennsylvania,
Hershey Medical School, Penn State, Thomas Jefferson School of Medicine,
Temple University Schools of Medicine and Graduate Studies, University
of Rochester, Johns Hopkins, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic
Medicine, Columbia University and University of Maryland. |
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