Dr Denes Szucs (University of Cambridge) - Title: Testing theories of developmental dyscalculia

Developmental dyscalculia (DD) is a learning difficulty thought to be specific to mathematics. Currently dominant cognitive neuroscience theories of DD suggest that DD originates from the impairment of the magnitude representation (MR) of the human brain, residing in the interparietal sulcus (IPS), or from impaired connections between number symbols and the MR. However, behavioural research offers several alternative theories for DD and neuro-imaging also suggests that impairments in DD may be linked to disruptions of other functions of the IPS than the MR. That is, besides the MR, impairment of working memory, attention, inhibition and spatial processing were also proposed to underlie DD. Read more in the abstract.