Bouhali Florence, Dubois Jessica, Hoeft Fumiko, Weiner Kevin S
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences & Weil Institute of Neuroscience, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.
Aix-Marseille University, CNRS, CRPN, Marseille, France.
bioRxiv. 2024 Jul 30:2024.07.30.605574. doi: 10.1101/2024.07.30.605574.
A growing body of literature indicates strong associations between indentations of the cerebral cortex (i.e., sulci) and individual differences in cognitive performance. Interruptions, or gaps, of sulci (historically known as ) are particularly intriguing as previous work suggests that these interruptions have a causal effect on cognitive development. Here, we tested how the presence and morphology of sulcal interruptions in the left posterior occipitotemporal sulcus (pOTS) longitudinally impact the development of a culturally-acquired skill: reading. Forty-three children were successfully followed from age 5 in kindergarten, at the onset of literacy instruction, to ages 7 and 8 with assessments of cognitive, pre-literacy, and literacy skills, as well as MRI anatomical scans at ages 5 and 8. Crucially, we demonstrate that the presence of a left pOTS gap at 5 years is a specific and robust longitudinal predictor of better future reading skills in children, with large observed benefits on reading behavior ranging from letter knowledge to reading comprehension. The effect of left pOTS interruptions on reading acquisition accumulated through time, and was larger than the impact of benchmark cognitive and familial predictors of reading ability and disability. Finally, we show that increased local U-fiber white matter connectivity associated with such sulcal interruptions possibly underlie these behavioral benefits, by providing a computational advantage. To our knowledge, this is the first quantitative evidence supporting a potential integrative gray-white matter mechanism underlying the cognitive benefits of macro-anatomical differences in sulcal morphology related to longitudinal improvements in a culturally-acquired skill.
越来越多的文献表明，大脑皮层的凹陷（即脑沟）与认知表现的个体差异之间存在紧密联系。脑沟的中断或间隙（历史上称为 ）尤其引人关注，因为先前的研究表明这些中断对认知发展具有因果效应。在此，我们测试了左侧枕颞后沟（pOTS）中脑沟中断的存在和形态如何纵向影响一种文化习得技能——阅读的发展。43名儿童从幼儿园5岁开始接受跟踪研究，此时正是识字教学开始之时，一直跟踪到7岁和8岁，期间对他们的认知、学前识字和识字技能进行了评估，同时在5岁和8岁时进行了MRI解剖扫描。至关重要的是，我们证明5岁时左侧pOTS间隙的存在是儿童未来阅读技能更好的一个特定且有力的纵向预测指标，在从字母知识到阅读理解的阅读行为方面都观察到了显著益处。左侧pOTS中断对阅读习得的影响随时间积累，且大于阅读能力和阅读障碍的基准认知及家庭预测指标的影响。最后，我们表明与这种脑沟中断相关的局部U纤维白质连接增加可能是这些行为益处的基础，因为它提供了一种计算优势。据我们所知，这是首个定量证据，支持了一种潜在的整合性灰白质机制，该机制是与一种文化习得技能的纵向改善相关的脑沟形态宏观解剖差异的认知益处的基础。
