Skip to main content

Main menu

  • HOME
  • CONTENT
    • Early Release
    • Featured
    • Current Issue
    • Issue Archive
    • Collections
    • Podcast
  • ALERTS
  • FOR AUTHORS
    • Information for Authors
    • Fees
    • Journal Clubs
    • eLetters
    • Submit
  • EDITORIAL BOARD
  • ABOUT
    • Overview
    • Advertise
    • For the Media
    • Rights and Permissions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Feedback
  • SUBSCRIBE

User menu

  • Log in
  • My Cart

Search

  • Advanced search
Journal of Neuroscience
  • Log in
  • My Cart
Journal of Neuroscience

Advanced Search

Submit a Manuscript
  • HOME
  • CONTENT
    • Early Release
    • Featured
    • Current Issue
    • Issue Archive
    • Collections
    • Podcast
  • ALERTS
  • FOR AUTHORS
    • Information for Authors
    • Fees
    • Journal Clubs
    • eLetters
    • Submit
  • EDITORIAL BOARD
  • ABOUT
    • Overview
    • Advertise
    • For the Media
    • Rights and Permissions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Feedback
  • SUBSCRIBE
PreviousNext
Articles, Systems/Circuits

Remediation of Childhood Math Anxiety and Associated Neural Circuits through Cognitive Tutoring

Kaustubh Supekar, Teresa Iuculano, Lang Chen and Vinod Menon
Journal of Neuroscience 9 September 2015, 35 (36) 12574-12583; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0786-15.2015
Kaustubh Supekar
1Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Teresa Iuculano
1Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Lang Chen
1Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Vinod Menon
1Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and
2Neurology and Neurological Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, and
3Stanford Neurosciences Institute, Stanford, California 94305
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Article
  • Figures & Data
  • Info & Metrics
  • eLetters
  • PDF
Loading

Article Figures & Data

Figures

  • Tables
  • Figure 1.
    • Download figure
    • Open in new tab
    • Download powerpoint
    Figure 1.

    Eight weeks of one-to-one math tutoring reduces math anxiety in high math-anxious children. a, Study design. Before tutoring, all children underwent an extensive battery of neuropsychological assessments for IQ, academic achievement, and working memory. Additionally, before tutoring, each child underwent an fMRI scan session during which they had to verify addition equations (Addition task; e.g., 3 + 4 = 7) and assess the validity of number identity expressions (Control task; e.g., 7 = 7). Upon successful completion of the aforementioned sessions, children went through an intensive 8 week one-to-one tutoring program focused on conceptual aspects of number knowledge and speeded practice on efficient counting strategies and systematic learning of number families (i.e., all the problems that summed to 5 and the corresponding subtraction problems) delivered through 22 lessons of increasing difficulty. Tutoring sessions occurred three times per week and were each ∼40–50 min in duration. After 8 weeks of tutoring, all children underwent a second MRI scan session. Additionally, math anxiety at pre-tutoring and post-tutoring sessions was assessed in each child using the SEMA. Pre-tutoring SEMA scores were used to delineate participants into HMA and LMA groups. b, Math-anxiety levels, as measured by the SEMA, decreased significantly with tutoring. There was a significant interaction between Time (pre-tutoring vs post-tutoring) and Group (HMA vs LMA) with HMA group showing larger reductions in math-anxiety levels with tutoring, compared with the LMA group (**p < 0.01) .

  • Figure 2.
    • Download figure
    • Open in new tab
    • Download powerpoint
    Figure 2.

    Eight weeks of one-to-one math tutoring remediates aberrant functional brain responses in high math-anxious children. A Time (pre-tutoring, post-tutoring) × Group (HMA, LMA) ANOVA revealed that compared with LMA children, HMA children showed greater tutoring-induced changes. Remarkably, tutoring-induced changes in functional brain response in HMA children were characterized by normalization of aberrant functional responses to levels seen in LMA children across distributed brain regions, including the amygdala as well as brain areas in the prefrontal, parietal, and ventral temporal-occipital (VTOC) cortices. Specifically, before tutoring, compared with the LMA group, the HMA group showed significantly greater activation in the right amygdala, a key brain region for processing negative emotions. Additionally, greater responses in the HMA group than in the LMA group were observed in left intraparietal sulcus (L.IPS), left angular gyrus (L.AG), right VLPFC (R.VLPFC), bilateral fusiform gyrus (L.FG and R.FG), and bilateral superior parietal lobe (L.SPL and R.SPL), regions involved in successful mathematical problem solving. No brain regions showed lesser responses in the HMA group than in the LMA group. After tutoring, no brain regions showed greater or lesser responses in the HMA group, compared with the LMA group, indicating remediation of aberrant functional responses in the HMA group. Left, Right amygdala region as well as frontoparietal/VTOC regions that showed a significant interaction between tutoring session and group. Top right, Higher functional responses in the HMA group, compared with the LMA group, within these regions, before tutoring. Bottom right, In these brain regions, there were no differences in the functional brain responses between HMA and LMA groups after tutoring (**p < 0.01).

  • Figure 3.
    • Download figure
    • Open in new tab
    • Download powerpoint
    Figure 3.

    Remediation of aberrant amygdala reactivity predicts tutoring-induced reductions in math anxiety. Eight weeks of one-to-one tutoring reduced math anxiety in HMA children and tutoring-induced reductions in right amygdala activity predicted individual reductions in math anxiety. These results remained significant even after covarying out pre-tutoring anxiety and tutoring-induced performance gains.

  • Figure 4.
    • Download figure
    • Open in new tab
    • Download powerpoint
    Figure 4.

    Eight weeks of one-to-one math tutoring remediates impaired functional brain circuits anchored in the amygdala in HMA children. A Time (pre-tutoring, post-tutoring) × Group (HMA, LMA) interaction analysis revealed that HMA children showed normalization of interhemispheric hyperconnectivity between the right and the left amygdala to the levels seen in LMA children. Notably, before tutoring, children in the HMA group showed greater effective connectivity between the right and the left amygdala during mathematical problem solving when compared with the LMA group. After tutoring, differences in effective connectivity of the amygdala that were evident before tutoring were entirely absent, suggesting remediation of impaired functional brain circuits in the HMA group. Left, Right amygdala seed region (x = 30 mm, y = 2 mm, z = −20 mm) used in the effective connectivity analysis and the left amygdala region (x = −26 mm, y = 2 mm, z = −24 mm) that showed a significant interaction between tutoring session and group. Top right, Higher effective connectivity in the HMA group, compared with the LMA group, between the right amygdala and the left amygdala before tutoring. Bottom right, After tutoring, there were no differences in the effective connectivity between the HMA and LMA groups, between the right amygdala and the left amygdala (**p < 0.01).

Tables

  • Figures
    • View popup
    Table 1.

    Demographic and neuropsychological measures in HMA and LMA groupsa

    MeasureHMALMAp value
    Age (years)8.51 (±0.51)8.68 (±0.37)0.34
    Gender6 males; 8 females6 males; 8 females1
    WASI
        Verbal IQ104.42 (±12.22)104.36 (±11.94)0.92
        Performance IQ103.50 (±11.39)105.79 (±15.61)0.21
        Full IQ104.25 (±7.73)105.57 (±9.94)0.42
    WIAT-II
        Numerical Operations91.16 (±11.76)89.24 (±12.04)0.20
        Math Reasoning93.83 (±10.41)95.79 (±10.93)0.38
        Word reading99.75 (±10.21)101.29 (±10.19)0.42
        Reading Comprehension104 (±11.58)104.86 (±10.83)0.78
    WMTB-C
        Digit Recall96.46 (±11.85)101.43 (±17.45)0.39
        Block Recall92.38 (±10.85)88.30 (±19.54)0.52
        Count Recall87.08 (±15.92)76.46 (±15.15)0.11
        Backward Digit Recall94.76 (±14.56)87.85 (±9.39)0.16
    • ↵aThe groups did not differ in age, IQ, math, reading, or working-memory abilities.

Back to top

In this issue

The Journal of Neuroscience: 35 (36)
Journal of Neuroscience
Vol. 35, Issue 36
9 Sep 2015
  • Table of Contents
  • Table of Contents (PDF)
  • About the Cover
  • Index by author
  • Advertising (PDF)
  • Ed Board (PDF)
Email

Thank you for sharing this Journal of Neuroscience article.

NOTE: We request your email address only to inform the recipient that it was you who recommended this article, and that it is not junk mail. We do not retain these email addresses.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Remediation of Childhood Math Anxiety and Associated Neural Circuits through Cognitive Tutoring
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from Journal of Neuroscience
(Your Name) thought you would be interested in this article in Journal of Neuroscience.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Print
View Full Page PDF
Citation Tools
Remediation of Childhood Math Anxiety and Associated Neural Circuits through Cognitive Tutoring
Kaustubh Supekar, Teresa Iuculano, Lang Chen, Vinod Menon
Journal of Neuroscience 9 September 2015, 35 (36) 12574-12583; DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0786-15.2015

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Respond to this article
Request Permissions
Share
Remediation of Childhood Math Anxiety and Associated Neural Circuits through Cognitive Tutoring
Kaustubh Supekar, Teresa Iuculano, Lang Chen, Vinod Menon
Journal of Neuroscience 9 September 2015, 35 (36) 12574-12583; DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0786-15.2015
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Jump to section

  • Article
    • Abstract
    • Introduction
    • Materials and Methods
    • Results
    • Discussion
    • Footnotes
    • References
  • Figures & Data
  • Info & Metrics
  • eLetters
  • PDF

Keywords

  • amygdala
  • anxiety
  • childhood
  • fMRI
  • intervention
  • plasticity

Responses to this article

Respond to this article

Jump to comment:

No eLetters have been published for this article.

Related Articles

Cited By...

More in this TOC Section

Articles

  • Choice Behavior Guided by Learned, But Not Innate, Taste Aversion Recruits the Orbitofrontal Cortex
  • Maturation of Spontaneous Firing Properties after Hearing Onset in Rat Auditory Nerve Fibers: Spontaneous Rates, Refractoriness, and Interfiber Correlations
  • Insulin Treatment Prevents Neuroinflammation and Neuronal Injury with Restored Neurobehavioral Function in Models of HIV/AIDS Neurodegeneration
Show more Articles

Systems/Circuits

  • Vigilance and behavioral state-dependent modulation of cortical neuronal activity throughout the sleep/wake cycle
  • Oxytocin Receptor-Expressing Neurons in the Paraventricular Thalamus Regulate Feeding Motivation through Excitatory Projections to the Nucleus Accumbens Core
  • Spatial Learning Drives Rapid Goal Representation in Hippocampal Ripples without Place Field Accumulation or Goal-Oriented Theta Sequences
Show more Systems/Circuits
  • Home
  • Alerts
  • Visit Society for Neuroscience on Facebook
  • Follow Society for Neuroscience on Twitter
  • Follow Society for Neuroscience on LinkedIn
  • Visit Society for Neuroscience on Youtube
  • Follow our RSS feeds

Content

  • Early Release
  • Current Issue
  • Issue Archive
  • Collections

Information

  • For Authors
  • For Advertisers
  • For the Media
  • For Subscribers

About

  • About the Journal
  • Editorial Board
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
(JNeurosci logo)
(SfN logo)

Copyright © 2022 by the Society for Neuroscience.
JNeurosci Online ISSN: 1529-2401

The ideas and opinions expressed in JNeurosci do not necessarily reflect those of SfN or the JNeurosci Editorial Board. Publication of an advertisement or other product mention in JNeurosci should not be construed as an endorsement of the manufacturer’s claims. SfN does not assume any responsibility for any injury and/or damage to persons or property arising from or related to any use of any material contained in JNeurosci.