Individual Variability in Cognitive Functioning and Brain Activity and Connectivity.

脑功能成像为我们了解大脑功能如何与个体认知能力相关提供了一个强大的窗口。虽然已有大量研究致力于将特定的认知功能与不同的大脑区域或回路联系起来，但总体认知能力可能与三个潜在的潜伏期因素有关，即广义认知能力(G因素)、结晶智力(与需要先前知识的任务有关)和流动智力(与需要在新情况下进行推理和适应的任务有关)。虽然越来越多的大脑研究质疑特定区域内任务诱导的功能连接活动的可靠性或可重复性，但有证据表明，我们可以提取潜在的大脑功能因素，这些因素既是单独识别的，也显示出更大的可靠性。我们的建议是将任务诱导的脑连接功能脑活动的潜在维度与认知能力的潜在维度(即‘G’、流动智力和结晶智力)联系起来。我们将使用人类连接组项目(n=1200)，这是一个丰富的功能神经成像和认知数据的大型公开可用数据集，以探索一系列功能度量的大脑功能的潜在维度。我们还将收集一个新的个体样本(总计n=140)，这些个体的高认知能力被定义为在总体表现中得分最高的5%；(n=40)和较低的认知能力(n=40)。我们将利用这个新颖的样本来验证在HCP样本中发现的与认知相关的大脑结构，检查这些结构是否与认知能力有关，或者高认知和低认知亚组之间的范畴差异。这项工作将促进我们对人类认知功能的理解，包括为什么我们看到像G这样的因素结构，而不是更具体领域的个体差异。这将对认知增强方面的工作以及理解在精神病人群中观察到的认知缺陷产生影响。

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.