Dyslexia is a learning disability that negatively affects reading, writing, and spelling development at the word level in 5%-9% of children. The phenotype is variable and complex, involving several potential cognitive and physical concomitants such as sensory dysregulation and immunodeficiencies. The biological pathogenesis is not well-understood. Toward a better understanding of the biological drivers of dyslexia, we conducted the first joint exome and metabolome investigation in a pilot sample of 30 participants with dyslexia and 13 controls. In the metabolite analysis, eight metabolites of interest emerged (pyridoxine, kynurenic acid, citraconic acid, phosphocreatine, hippuric acid, xylitol, 2-deoxyuridine, and acetylcysteine). A metabolite-metabolite interaction analysis identified Krebs cycle intermediates that may be implicated in the development of dyslexia. Gene ontology analysis based on exome variants resulted in several pathways of interest, including the sensory perception of smell (olfactory) and immune system-related responses. In the joint exome and metabolite analysis, the olfactory transduction pathway emerged as the primary pathway of interest. Although the olfactory transduction and Krebs cycle pathways have not previously been described in the dyslexia literature, these pathways have been implicated in other neurodevelopmental disorders including autism spectrum disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder, suggesting the possibility of these pathways playing a role in dyslexia as well. Immune system response pathways, on the other hand, have been implicated in both dyslexia and other neurodevelopmental disorders.
Misconceptions about mental health can have negative effects on therapy, education, and social interactions. Misconceptions about mental health can be formed through misinformation being spread online from a variety of sources. The current study manipulates and examines the effects of social media users’ justification for knowing on participants’ perceived credibility and knowledge revision. Justification for evidence was manipulated within subjects. There were 3 types of justifications: personal experience, professional experience, or no justification. To test the effects of evidence justification, we used two dependent variables: perceived credibility and knowledge revision. MTurk participants (n = 111) completed pretest assessments regarding mental health and general science knowledge. They then read 11 experimenter-derived Twitter threads, each containing a misconception, two tweets with a refutation, and a statement of justification for the refutation. After each Twitter thread, participants were asked to rate the perceived credibility of the refutation texts. Participants were later given a posttest to measure knowledge revision as well as a series of questions that measured epistemic belief systems. We hypothesized that participants would be more likely to revise their misconceptions when the justification was personal expertise compared to when the justification was professional expertise or no justification is given. The findings did not support these hypotheses, instead indicating that the highest perceived credibility rankings came from professional expertise while knowledge revision occurred in all conditions.