Neural Changes Underlying the Development of Fluid Reasoning

描述(由申请人提供)：流畅的推理，或在新情况下进行逻辑思维和解决问题的能力，是人类认知的核心。在童年时期获得流畅的推理能力被认为是支持其他认知领域学习的脚手架，包括阅读和算术。一个基本的问题与儿童和青春期流体推理发展的大脑机制有关。这项拟议的研究考察了5至17岁儿童大脑结构和功能的典型发育变化与流体推理能力的提高有关。将使用加速纵向设计，能够评估1-3年内的人内变化，每个参与者有两次测量机会。大脑结构的变化将通过结构磁共振成像和扩散张量成像进行评估。此外，在两个推理任务的执行过程中，将使用功能磁共振成像来评估大脑功能的变化。最后，将使用一组认知测量来评估推理能力的变化，以及处理速度、短期记忆、工作记忆和执行功能的变化。动态系统模型将被用来研究从童年到青春期大脑结构、功能和表现之间的相互关系。这些分析将被用来评估关于推理能力发展变化背后的神经机制的假设。这种发展、认知神经科学和量化相结合的方法是新颖的，应该会在几个方面产生重要的进展。首先，在不同年龄和能力水平的个体中，对与流体推理相关的大脑激活的测量将为人们提供新的见解，了解一种相对鲜为人知的重要高级认知功能变化背后的神经机制。第二，到目前为止，为数不多的关于大脑发育的纵向研究都集中在大脑结构的变化上。因此，这个纵向数据集在表征大部分儿童和青春期大脑结构和功能方面的典型发育变化方面将是无价的。最后，这项研究可能会为影响儿童和/或成人的一些神经疾病的推理缺陷的性质提供见解，包括创伤性脑损伤、自闭症、精神分裂症和额颞痴呆。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Fluid reasoning, or the capacity to think logically and solve problems in novel situations, is central to human cognition. The acquisition of fluid reasoning ability during childhood is thought to serve as a scaffold that supports learning in other cognitive domains, including reading and arithmetic. A fundamental question concerns the brain mechanisms that underlie the development of fluid reasoning over childhood and adolescence. The proposed research examines the typical developmental changes in brain structure and function associated with improvements in fluid reasoning between the ages of 5 and 17. An accelerated longitudinal design will be used, enabling the assessment of within-person changes over 1-3 years, with two measurement occasions per participant. Changes in brain structure will be assessed with structural magnetic resonance imaging and diffusion tensor imaging. Additionally, changes in brain function will be assessed with functional magnetic resonance imaging during the performance of two reasoning tasks. Finally, a battery of cognitive measures will be used to assess changes in reasoning ability, as well as processing speed, short-term memory, working memory, and executive function. Dynamical systems modeling will be used to examine the interrelations between brain structure, function, and performance from childhood to adolescence. These analyses will be used to evaluate hypotheses about the neural mechanisms underlying developmental changes in reasoning ability. This combined developmental, cognitive neuroscientific, and quantitative approach is novel, and should yield important advances on several fronts. First, the measurement of brain activation associated with fluid reasoning in individuals of varying age and ability level will provide fresh insights into the neural mechanisms underlying the changes in an important higher-level cognitive function about which relatively little is known. Second, up to now, the few published longitudinal studies on brain development have focused on changes in brain structure. As such, this longitudinal dataset will be invaluable in terms of characterizing typical developmental changes over a large part of childhood and adolescence in terms of both brain structure and function. Finally, this research may provide insights into the nature of reasoning deficits in a number of neurological disorders affecting children and/or adults, including Traumatic Brain Injury, autism, schizophrenia, and frontotemporal dementia.