Individual Variability in Cognitive Functioning and Brain Activity and Connectivity.

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Functional brain imaging has provided us a powerful window into understanding how brain function relates to individual cognitive abilities. While a plethora of research has worked towards linking specific cognitive functions to distinct brain regions or circuits, overall cognitive abilities can be related to three underlying latency factors, generalized cognitive ability (the `G' factor), crystalized intelligence (related to tasks requiring prior knowledge) and fluid intelligence (related to tasks requiring reasoning and adaptation in novel situations). While a growing body of brain research has questioned the reliability or replicability of task-induced activity of functional connectivity within specific regions, there is evidence that we can extract underlying latent factors of brain function which are both individually identifying and show greater reliability. Our proposal is to relate latent dimensions of task-induced functional brain activity of brain connectivity to latent dimensions of cognitive abilities (i.e. `G', fluid intelligence, and crystalized intelligence). We will use the Human Connectome Project (n=1200), a large publicly available dataset rich in functional neuroimaging and cognitive data, to explore latent dimensions of brain function across a range of functional metrics. We will also collect a novel sample of individuals (total n=140) enriched for high cognitive ability defined as scoring in the top 5% of generalized performance; (n=40) and lower cognitive ability (n=40). We will make use of this novel sample to validate our brain constructs related to cognition which were uncovered in the HCP sample, examining if such constructs show relationships with cognitive ability, or categorical differences between the high and low cognitive sub-groups. This work will advance our understanding of human cognitive functioning, including why we see factor structures such as `G' as opposed to more domain specific differences across individuals. This will have implications for work on cognitive enhancement, as well as understanding cognitive deficits observed in psychiatric populations.