Center for the Study of Human Cognition, Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
Neuropsychologia. 2011 Nov;49(13):3605-11. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.09.012. Epub 2011 Sep 16.
Distributed brain areas support intellectual abilities in adults. How structural maturation of these areas in childhood enables development of intelligence is not established. Neuroimaging can be used to monitor brain development, but studies to date have typically considered single imaging modalities. To explore the impact of structural brain maturation on the development of intelligence, we used a combination of cortical thickness, white matter (WM) volume and WM microstructure in 168 healthy participants aged 8-30 years. Principal component analyses (PCAs) were conducted separately for cortical thickness, WM volume, fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) in 64 different brain regions. For all four parameters, the PCAs revealed a general factor explaining between 40% and 53% of the variance across regions. When tested separately, negative age-independent relationships were found between intellectual abilities and cortical thickness and MD, respectively, while WM volume and FA were positively associated with intellectual abilities. The relationships between intellectual abilities and brain structure varied with age, with stronger relationships seen in children and adolescents than in young adults. Multiple regression analysis with the different imaging measures as simultaneous predictors, showed that cortical thickness, WM volume and MD all yielded unique information in explaining intellectual abilities in development. The present study demonstrates that different imaging modalities and measures give complementary information about the neural substrates of intellectual abilities in development, emphasizing the importance of multimodal imaging in investigations of neurocognitive development.
分布式大脑区域支持成年人的智力能力。这些区域在儿童时期的结构成熟如何促进智力发展尚不清楚。神经影像学可用于监测大脑发育，但迄今为止的研究通常只考虑单一的成像模式。为了探讨结构大脑成熟对智力发展的影响，我们使用了 168 名 8-30 岁健康参与者的皮质厚度、白质（WM）体积和 WM 微观结构的组合。在 64 个不同的大脑区域中分别对皮质厚度、WM 体积、各向异性分数（FA）和平均弥散度（MD）进行主成分分析（PCA）。对于所有四个参数，PCA 揭示了一个普遍因素，该因素可以解释跨区域的 40%至 53%的方差。分别测试时，智力能力与皮质厚度和 MD 呈负相关，而与 WM 体积和 FA 呈正相关，与年龄无关。智力能力与大脑结构之间的关系随年龄而变化，儿童和青少年的关系比年轻人更强。使用不同的成像测量值作为同时预测因子的多元回归分析表明，皮质厚度、WM 体积和 MD 都可以提供智力能力发展的独特信息。本研究表明，不同的成像模式和测量方法提供了智力能力神经基础的互补信息，强调了在神经认知发展研究中多模态成像的重要性。
