Poster No:
752
Submission Type:
Late-Breaking Abstract Submission
Authors:
Imogen Stead1, Annemaree Carroll1, Dragan Rangelov2, Jason Mattingley1
Institutions:
1University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia, 2Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC, Australia
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Introduction:
Adolescence is a critical period characterised by significant neurocognitive development. Understanding how structural brain changes underlie improvements or changes in cognitive functions such as attention, inhibitory control, decision making, and reward processing is crucial to mapping normative development and identifying potential deviations. In the current study, we examined the relationship between age-related volumetric variability across the brain and cognitive performance in a typically developing adolescent sample.
Methods:
A total of 254 adolescents aged 13–20 years participated in the study. Participants completed a battery of cognitive tasks designed to assess various domains of cognitive functioning including attention, inhibitory control, decision making, and reward sensitivity. In a separate session, each participant underwent high-resolution MRI scanning to acquire structural images of the brain. To handle the high-dimensional brain imaging data, we employed Lasso regression-a regularization method well-suited for variable selection-to identify the most predictive brain regions associated with cognitive performance. Subsequently, mediation analyses were conducted to test whether age-related changes in brain structure mediated the relationship between chronological age and cognitive performance.
Results:
The main hypothesis was that volumetric variability within prefrontal cortical regions-which undergo protracted development throughout adolescence and serve as key regions involved in higher-order executive and cognitive functions-would significantly account for improvements in cognitive functions observed across adolescence. The results indicated that variability in several prefrontal regions was indeed a significant mediator of the relationship between age and cognitive performance. Specifically, the superior frontal gyrus mediated the relationship between age and processing speed, the inferior frontal gyrus was found to mediate the association between age and inhibitory control, and the rostral middle frontal cortex significantly mediated the link between age and reward sensitivity.
Conclusions:
These findings underscore the role of prefrontal cortex development in shaping the cognitive maturation of adolescents.
Emotion, Motivation and Social Neuroscience:
Reward and Punishment
Higher Cognitive Functions:
Decision Making
Executive Function, Cognitive Control and Decision Making 1
Lifespan Development:
Early life, Adolescence, Aging 2
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
Segmentation and Parcellation
Neuroanatomy, Physiology, Metabolism and Neurotransmission:
Normal Development
Perception, Attention and Motor Behavior:
Attention: Visual
Keywords:
Cognition
Development
Modeling
STRUCTURAL MRI
Other - Adolescence
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
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Please indicate below if your study was a "resting state" or "task-activation” study.
Other
Healthy subjects only or patients (note that patient studies may also involve healthy subjects):
Healthy subjects
Was this research conducted in the United States?
No
Were any human subjects research approved by the relevant Institutional Review Board or ethics panel?
NOTE: Any human subjects studies without IRB approval will be automatically rejected.
Yes
Were any animal research approved by the relevant IACUC or other animal research panel?
NOTE: Any animal studies without IACUC approval will be automatically rejected.
Not applicable
Please indicate which methods were used in your research:
Functional MRI
Structural MRI
Diffusion MRI
Behavior
Computational modeling
For human MRI, what field strength scanner do you use?
3.0T
Which processing packages did you use for your study?
Free Surfer
Provide references using APA citation style.
NA
No