Scientists may have found a cause of dyslexia

Mariëtte Le Roux reports for AFP,

A duo of French scientists said 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," study co-author Guy Ropars of the University of Rennes, told AFP.

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

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.

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