Visual function, fatty acids and dyslexia

There is mounting evidence that developmental dyslexia is a neurodevelopmen tal disorder which involves abnormalities of fatty acid metabolism, particu larly with respect to certain long-chain highly unsaturated fatty acids (HU FAs). Psychophysical evidence also strongly suggests that dyslexics may hav e visual deficits as well as phonological problems. Specifically, these vis ual deficits appear to be related to the magnocellular pathway, which is sp ecialized for processing fast, rapidly-changing information about the visua l scene. It remains unclear how these two aspects of dyslexia - fatty acid processing and visual magnocellular function - could be related. We propose some hypotheses - necessarily speculative, given the paucity of biochemica l research in this field to date - which address this question. (C) 2000 Ha rcourt Publishers Ltd.