Response inhibition is associated with white matter microstructure in children

NEUROPSYCHOLOGIA

卷:48

Article

Madsen, Kathrine Skak^1,2,3  Baare, William F. C.²  Ejersbo, Lisser Rye⁵  Gerlach, Christian⁵  Paulson, Olaf B.^2,3  Jernigan, Terry L.^2,3,4 

[1] Copenhagen Univ Hosp, Sect 340, Danish Res Ctr Magnet Resonance, MR Dept, DK-2650 Hvidovre, Denmark

[2] Ctr Integrated Mol Brain Imaging, Copenhagen, Denmark

[3] Univ Copenhagen, Fac Hlth Sci, DK-1168 Copenhagen, Denmark

[4] Univ Calif San Diego, Ctr Human Dev, San Diego, CA 92103 USA

[5] Univ Aarhus, Danish Sch Educ, Learning Lab Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark

关键词: Brain maturation;    Cognitive development;    Diffusion tensor imaging;    Executive control;    Fractional anisotropy;    MRI;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2009.11.001

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

Cognitive control of thoughts, actions and emotions is important for normal behaviour and the development of such control continues throughout childhood and adolescence. Several lines of evidence suggest that response inhibition is primarily mediated by a right-lateralized network involving inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), presupplementary motor cortex (preSMA), and subthalamic nucleus. Though the brain's fibre tracts are known to develop during childhood, little is known about how fibre tract development within this network relates to developing behavioural control. Here we examined the relationship between response inhibition, as measured with the stop-signal task, and indices of regional white matter microstructure in typically-developing children. We hypothesized that better response inhibition performance would be associated with higher fractional anisotropy (FA) in fibre tracts within right IFG and preSMA after controlling for age. Mean FA and diffusivity values were extracted from right and left IFG and preSMA. As hypothesized, faster response inhibition was significantly associated with higher FA and lower perpendicular diffusivity in both the right IFG and the right preSMA, possibly reflecting faster speed of neural conduction within more densely packed or better myelinated fibre tracts. Moreover, both of these effects remained significant after controlling for age and whole brain estimates of these DTI parameters. Interestingly, right IFG and preSMA FA contributed additively to the prediction of performance variability. Observed associations may be related to variation in phase of maturation, to activity-dependent alterations in the network subserving response inhibition, or to stable individual differences in underlying neural system connectivity. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

【 授权许可】

Free