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Number blindness, or “dyscalculia”, is a condition in which a person appears to be unable to understand and work with numbers. Like “dyslexia”, in which otherwise clever people experience difficulty with written words or language processing, it affects a percentage of the population.
But unlike dyslexia, it is less well recognized.
Current research appears to have located the very spot where the difficulty lies: the right parietal lobe, situated near the back of the brain. New knowledge may lead to finding a treatment.
In a study done at University College, London, people who were normally good at math had electromagnetic pulses fired at their right parietal lobes as they took math tests. After being zapped, they had the same kind of number recognition problems as “number blind” people.
And firing pulses at the left parietal lobe had no impact on their ability to deal with the numbers.
Dr Roy Cohen Kadosh, who led the study, said, “We found that stimulation to this brain region during a math test radically impacted the subjects’ reaction time. This provides strong evidence that dyscalculia is caused by malformations in the right parietal lobe.”
This is an important step toward the ultimate goal of early diagnosis, which will lead in turn to earlier treatments and more effective remedial teaching.
The findings appear in the journal Current Biology. source is web news site www.metro.co.uk on 3/26/07
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