Doing math activates similar "neural codes" in parents and children from the same family

What is it about?

Every parent knows how striking it is to see themselves reflected in their child. This concerns physical resemblances of course, but also personality, attitudes, and even learning abilities or difficulties. However, we still do not fully understand the brain mechanisms that could explain these familial resemblances in learning. In this study, we show for the first time that parents and children from the same family share similar "neural codes" in certain brain regions during arithmetic processing. Quite remarkably, this similarity of familial "neural code" was found in three brain areas: the left and right anterior insula as well as the left precentral gyrus. These regions are particularly important for arithmetic processing because they manage functions such as attention or working memory (i.e., our ability to retain and use information while we think).

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Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Our findings suggest that the organization of certain brain regions related to arithmetic processing could be transmitted from parent to child. They could open perspectives for detecting whether a child with a parent affected by a learning disorder would also present a risk of developing the same disorder, based on similarity between familial neural "codes." Even though it is still too early to affirm that this could be the case, there are reasons to be optimistic. Indeed, we show that the more similar the "neural code" of a specific region (the right insula) is between mother and child, the more their arithmetic skills resemble each other. This effect is particularly pronounced when mothers have the most difficulties with the task. This study could therefore contribute to the future development of early screening tools for learning disorders that run in families, such as dyscalculia or dyslexia.

Perspectives