Dyslexia is a learning disorder characterized by difficulty reading despite normal intelligence. It is caused by genetic and environmental factors and affects areas of the brain involved in reading. The document then discusses an individual's personal history with being diagnosed with dyslexia as a child and struggling to read but overcoming challenges with treatment. Neurological factors associated with dyslexia include less activation in areas of the left brain during reading and theories about impairments to other cognitive processes.

1. DYSLEXIA
AN EXAMPLEOF EVERYDAY NEUROBIOLOGY

2. What is dyslexia?
■ This disease is believed to be caused by genetics and environmental factors.
■ It’s also known as reading disorder. It is characterized by trouble with reading despite
normal intelligence.
■ Affected individuals may have problems such as spelling words, reading quickly,
writing words, pronouncing words when reading aloud and understanding what one
reads.
■ This difficulties are often noticed at school.
■ This disease is diagnosed through a series of tests of memory, vision, spelling, and
reading skills.

3. My history with dyslexia goes back to when I was little. During my childhood I did not
present any difficulties different from my peers. As I got older, the problems at school
began to appear. At first my parents thought I just needed a few refresher classes to catch
up with my classmates. My reading problems were the determining factor for my parents
to realize that I was not like everyone else. Nobody at school knew what was wrong with
me. So my parents decided to take me to a speech therapist. There I was diagnosed and
treated for eight years. My change was impressive, but to this day there are many things
that I cannot do "normally". It took me a lot to learn to ride a bike, read in public, write a
letter to my friends, and feel like everyone else. After much struggle, today I am about to
finish a career in the same conditions as a person who does not suffer from dyslexia. And
all this is thanks to the fact that I was treated and I had the courage to understand myself
and strive to be better every day.

4. Neuroanatomy
■ Some people with dyslexia shows less electrical
activation in-o art of the left hemisphere of the brain
involved with reading
– Inferior frontal gyrus
– Inferior parietal lobule
– Middle andVentral temporal cortex
■ Others theories are the impairment of cerebellum-
controlled muscle movement
– Formation of words by the tongue and facial
muscles
– Automatic tasks such as reading
– Balance impairments

5. Pathophysiology
■ Most people who are right-hand dominant have the left
hemisphere of their brain specialize more in language
processing.
– Anatomical differencences in the corpus callosum, the
bundle of nerves fibers that connects the left and the
right hemispheres, have been linked to dyslexia.
■ The MRI indicates changes in connectivity or in gray matter
density in areas replanted to reading/languages.

6. Pathophysiology
Dual route theory
■ This theory suggests that two separate cognitive routes are involved in reading aloud
– One mechanism is the lexical route, which is the process whereby skilled readers
can recognize known words by sight alone, through a "dictionary" lookup
procedure.
– The other mechanism is the nonlexical or sublexical route, which is the process
whereby the reader can "sound out" a written word. This is done by identifying
the word's constituent parts (letters, phonemes, graphemes) and applying
knowledge of how these parts are associated with each other, for example, how a
string of neighboring letters sound together.

7. Thoughts on neurobiology of everyday
life course
■ This course was really amazing. It has help me open my eyes to the intricacies of the
human brain.
■ I’m a biotechnology’s student. I’m seriously considering a master in neurobiology.
■ I feel that this course has provided me with a solid foundation in neurobiology. So, in
the future, I will be able to go deeper and enjoy this interesting word.
■ This causes has helped me to appreciate how blessed I am with health and do
everything possible to maintain it. And I also want to help those around me.