Scientists hint at dyslexia solution

PARIS - A duo of French scientists said on Wednesday they may have found a physiological, and seemingly treatable, cause for dyslexia hidden in tiny light-receptor cells in the human eye.

In people with the reading disability, the cells were arranged in matching patterns in both eyes, which may be to blame for confusing the brain by producing "mirror" images, the co-authors wrote in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

In non-dyslexic people, the cells are arranged asymmetrically, allowing signals from the one eye to be overridden by the other to create a single image in the brain.

"Our observations lead us to believe that we indeed found a potential cause of dyslexia," said study co-author Guy Ropars of the University of Rennes.

It offers a "relatively simple" method of diagnosis, he added, by simply looking into a subject's eyes.

Confusing image

Furthermore, "the discovery of a delay (of about 10 thousandths of a second) between the primary image and the mirror image in the opposing hemispheres of the brain, allowed us to develop a method to erase the mirror image that is so confusing for dyslexic people" - using an LED lamp.

Like being left-or right-handed, humans also have a dominant eye.

As most of us have two eyes, which record slightly different versions of the same image, the brain has to select one of the two, creating a "non-symmetry".

Image signals are captured with rods and cones in the eye - the cones being responsible for color.

In non-dyslexic people, the blue cone-free spot in one eye - the dominant one - was round and in the other eye unevenly shaped.

In dyslexic people, both eyes have the same, round spot, which translates into neither eye being dominant, the study found.

About 700 million people in the world are known to suffer from dyslexia - about one in ten of the global population.

Agence France-presse

(China Daily 10/19/2017 page11)