Article Figures & Data
Figures
- 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.
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.
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.
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
Measure HMA LMA p value Age (years) 8.51 (±0.51) 8.68 (±0.37) 0.34 Gender 6 males; 8 females 6 males; 8 females 1 WASI Verbal IQ 104.42 (±12.22) 104.36 (±11.94) 0.92 Performance IQ 103.50 (±11.39) 105.79 (±15.61) 0.21 Full IQ 104.25 (±7.73) 105.57 (±9.94) 0.42 WIAT-II Numerical Operations 91.16 (±11.76) 89.24 (±12.04) 0.20 Math Reasoning 93.83 (±10.41) 95.79 (±10.93) 0.38 Word reading 99.75 (±10.21) 101.29 (±10.19) 0.42 Reading Comprehension 104 (±11.58) 104.86 (±10.83) 0.78 WMTB-C Digit Recall 96.46 (±11.85) 101.43 (±17.45) 0.39 Block Recall 92.38 (±10.85) 88.30 (±19.54) 0.52 Count Recall 87.08 (±15.92) 76.46 (±15.15) 0.11 Backward Digit Recall 94.76 (±14.56) 87.85 (±9.39) 0.16 ↵aThe groups did not differ in age, IQ, math, reading, or working-memory abilities.
