Davis Megan M, Woodburn Mackenzie, Nugiel Tehila, Rakesh Divyangana, Tate Maresa, Asciutto William, Lin Weili, Cohen Jessica R, Sheridan Margaret A
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27514.
Department of Psychology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2025 Jun 3;122(22):e2418176122. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2418176122. Epub 2025 May 27.
The human cortex undergoes immense change in the first years of life, doubling in thickness within the first year and evidencing the greatest change within the first 5 y. While substantial research has identified the early postnatal period as a sensitive period in cortical development, research to date lacks the temporal resolution necessary to identify which aspects of cortical change predict later neural and cognitive function. This study leveraged a rich longitudinal dataset of cortical thickness in 50 children who were scanned up to 11 times between birth and 6 y. We used nonlinear multilevel modeling to explore patterns of cortical change across the brain during this period and distinguish whether different phases of change would predict performance and brain activation during a working memory task children completed at approximately 9 y. Cortical thickness across the brain showed a large increase from birth through 12 mo, a decrease from 12 to 18 mo, and a small increase from 18 mo to 6 y, mirroring patterns of early neural proliferation, pruning, and sustained growth. Performance and neural activation during the working memory task were associated with smaller peak (i.e., 12 mo) thickness and a marginally less steep 12 to 18-mo decline in thickness in the middle frontal gyrus (MFG) of the frontal lobe, in line with evidence demonstrating concurrent links between frontal lobe structure and working memory. These findings validate theories of cortical growth developed in preclinical models using human data and demonstrate that prefrontal cortex development in infancy uniquely predicts neurocognitive function 9 y later.
人类大脑皮层在生命的最初几年会发生巨大变化，在第一年厚度会翻倍，且在最初5年内变化最为显著。虽然大量研究已将出生后早期确定为皮层发育的敏感期，但迄今为止的研究缺乏确定皮层变化的哪些方面能预测后期神经和认知功能所需的时间分辨率。本研究利用了一个丰富的纵向数据集，该数据集包含50名儿童的皮层厚度信息，这些儿童在出生至6岁期间接受了多达11次扫描。我们使用非线性多级模型来探索这一时期大脑皮层变化的模式，并区分不同的变化阶段是否能预测儿童在大约9岁时完成的工作记忆任务中的表现和大脑激活情况。整个大脑的皮层厚度从出生到12个月大幅增加，从12个月到18个月减少，从18个月到6岁小幅增加，这反映了早期神经增殖、修剪和持续生长的模式。工作记忆任务期间的表现和神经激活与额叶中额回（MFG）较小的峰值（即12个月时）厚度以及12至18个月期间厚度略微不那么陡峭的下降有关，这与表明额叶结构与工作记忆之间存在并发联系的证据一致。这些发现利用人类数据验证了临床前模型中发展的皮层生长理论，并表明婴儿期前额叶皮层发育独特地预测了9年后的神经认知功能。
