Fornito Alexander, Yücel Murat, Wood Stephen, Stuart Geoffrey W, Buchanan Jo-Anne, Proffitt Tina, Anderson Vicki, Velakoulis Dennis, Pantelis Christos
Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre, Department of Psychiatry, The University of Melbourne, Sunshine Hospital, 176 Furlong Road, St Albans, Victoria 3021, Australia.
Cereb Cortex. 2004 Apr;14(4):424-31. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhh004.
The neuropsychological correlates of inter-individual variations in cortical folding are poorly understood. Anterior cingulate (AC) cortex is one region characterized by considerable variability, particularly with respect to the paracingulate sulcus (PCS), which is present in only 30-60% of individuals and more commonly found in the left cerebral hemisphere. To investigate whether inter-individual differences in this PCS asymmetry are related to cognitive performance, we classified 30 healthy right-handed males as displaying either a leftward, rightward or symmetric pattern of folding based on the incidence and extent of the PCS in each hemisphere, and compared their performance on tasks engaging executive cognitive processes associated with frontal lobe function. We found that the more common leftward PCS asymmetry was associated with better performance across verbal and non-verbal executive tasks, but that PCS variability had no effect on tasks less dependent on executive functions. These results suggest that the leftward pattern of folding is associated with a non-specific performance advantage on cognitively demanding executive function tasks, possibly due to differences in functional interactions between AC/paracingulate cortex and connected frontal regions. It therefore appears that normal variations in brain morphology are associated with individual differences in cognitive abilities.
目前人们对皮质折叠个体间差异的神经心理学关联了解甚少。前扣带（AC）皮质是一个具有显著变异性的区域，尤其是在扣带旁沟（PCS）方面，该脑沟仅在30%至60%的个体中存在，且更常见于左侧大脑半球。为了研究这种PCS不对称性的个体间差异是否与认知表现相关，我们根据每个半球中PCS的发生率和范围，将30名健康的右利手男性分类为呈现向左、向右或对称的折叠模式，并比较了他们在涉及与额叶功能相关的执行认知过程的任务中的表现。我们发现，更常见的向左PCS不对称与言语和非言语执行任务中的更好表现相关，但PCS变异性对较少依赖执行功能的任务没有影响。这些结果表明，向左的折叠模式与对认知要求较高的执行功能任务具有非特异性的表现优势相关，这可能是由于AC/扣带旁皮质与相连额叶区域之间功能相互作用的差异所致。因此，大脑形态的正常变异似乎与认知能力的个体差异有关。
