Academic achievements and brain volume development in children and adolescents

Abstract

Children are expected to acquire both basic and numeric skills. Achievement of higher levels of reading, writing, arithmetic, and vocabulary are favorable and desirable. The relationship between each literacy skill and neural development has been investigated; however, association between brain development and the four literacy skills has not been examined. This longitudinal, structural, neuroimaging study explored the contribution of higher academic achievement in reading, writing, arithmetic, and vocabulary to neural development. The brain volumes of children and adolescents aged 9–16 years were measured in the first test. Approximately 2.6 years later, the brain volumes and four academic achievement scores of 77 participants were measured in the second test. Changes in the gray matter volume in the left fusiform gyrus were associated with vocabulary scores, while those in the left striatum were associated with arithmetic scores. The reading and writing scores showed no statistically significant relationship with changes in brain volume. The current vocabulary score correlated with current gray matter volume, while brain volumes in the first test showed no association with any achievement scores. These results suggest that academic achievement may modulate brain plasticity in various ways.

Structural brain correlates of non-verbal cognitive ability in 5-year-old children: findings from the FinnBrain Birth Cohort study

“…Furthermore, 5-year-olds have yet to start school, meaning most of them haven't gone through the changes associated with academic abilities such as reading (Chyl et al, 2021) and arithmetic (Hashimoto et al, 2022).…”

“…Five years is a particularly interesting age to study the structural brain correlates of cognitive ability, as the children are old enough to both cooperate in cognitive assessment to be reliably evaluated and to lie still in the scanner while awake. Furthermore, 5-year-olds have yet to start school, meaning most of them haven’t gone through the changes associated with academic abilities such as reading (Chyl et al, 2021) and arithmetic (Hashimoto et al, 2022).…”

Structural brain correlates of non‐verbal cognitive ability in 5‐year‐old children: Findings from the FinnBrain birth cohort study

“…Five years is a particularly interesting age to study the structural brain correlates of cognitive ability, as the children are old enough to both cooperate in cognitive assessment to be reliably evaluated and to lie still in the scanner while awake. Furthermore, 5‐year‐olds have yet to start school (in Finland), meaning most of them have not gone through the changes associated with the learning of academic abilities such as reading (Chyl et al, 2021 ) and arithmetic (Hashimoto et al, 2022 ).…”