Developmental Coordination Disorder: A Voxel-Based MRI Study of Neural Correlates

INTRODUCTION Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) is a common childhood disease, affecting roughly 5-6% of all school-aged children [1], characterised by deficits in learning and automating motor skills [2]. It can have a significant long-term social and academic impact on sufferers [3]. The role of specific brain areas in DCD has long been postulated from psychometric studies, with particular evidence for the cerebellum [4] and parietal lobe [5] amongst others. However, the underlying aetiology of the disease remains poorly understood. Most studies of DCD have been restricted to behavioural or physiologic measurements; there are no existing structural imaging studies of DCD. This study is, to the best of our knowledge, the first to use structural magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the hypothesis that DCD has neural correlates that can be seen in brain morphometry.