A Low-Cost, Computer-Interfaced Drawing Pad for fMRI Studies of Dysgraphia and Dyslexia

Abstract

We have developed a pen and writing tablet for use by subjects during fMRI scanning. The pen consists of two jacketed, multi-mode optical fibers routed to the tip of a hollowed-out ball-point pen. The pen has been further modified by addition of a plastic plate to maintain a perpendicular pen-tablet orientation. The tablet is simply a non-metallic frame holding a paper print of continuously varying color gradients. The optical fibers are routed out of the MRI bore to a light-tight box in an adjacent control room. Within the box, light from a high intensity LED is coupled into one of the fibers, while the other fiber abuts a color sensor. Light from the LED exits the pen tip, illuminating a small spot on the tablet, and the resulting reflected light is routed to the color sensor. Given a lookup table of position for each color on the tablet, the coordinates of the pen on the tablet may be displayed and digitized in real-time. While simple and inexpensive, the system achieves sufficient resolution to grade writing tasks testing dysgraphic and dyslexic phenomena.

Contrasting brain patterns of writing-related DTI parameters, fMRI connectivity, and DTI–fMRI connectivity correlations in children with and without dysgraphia or dyslexia

“…It was possible to study writing during imaging by using a novel MRI-compatible stylus, which allows participants to write while in the scanner and stores what they write concurrently and is registered in time with the fMRI data acquisition for subsequent analyses ( Reitz, 2013 ). Each participant received training outside the scanner and completed four tasks in this order: (a) no experimenter-defined task (RESTING STATE), (b) production of the letter that follows a visually displayed letter in alphabet order (ALPHABET WRITING task), (c) production of letter in the blank in a visually displayed letter string to create a correctly spelled word (SPELLING WRITING task), and (d) planning a composition on an experimenter-provided topic (PLANNING task).…”

Evaluation of Handwriting Movement Kinematics: From an Ecological to a Magnetic Resonance Environment

“…Thus, it is also useful to develop MR-compatible devices to perform a kinematic recording of the writing movement during fMRI examination, even though it poses a problem related to the validity of the kinematic data because of the postural constraints the subject is forced to maintain in the MR scanner. Until now some efforts have been done in this direction, but only few studies tackled this issue ( Katanoda et al, 2001 ; Siebner et al, 2002 ; Reithler et al, 2006 ; Reitz et al, 2013 ; Karimpoor et al, 2015 ) and none of them tested whether the kinematic features of the subject’s movements obtained in ecological writing conditions (i.e., when the subject is seated at a table) are preserved when the task is performed inside the MR scanner. Indeed, one might hypothesize that when a person moves inside the narrow space of the MR environment the handwriting movement performance changes.…”

Self-government of complex reading and writing brains informed by cingulo-opercular network for adaptive control and working memory components for language learning

“…It was possible to study writing during imaging by using an MRI-compatible stylus, which allows participants to write while in the scanner and stores what they write concurrently and is registered in time with the fMRI data acquisition for subsequent analyses [31]. Two kinds of transcription tasks were included—one involving only sublexical handwriting and one involving lexical spelling.…”