Arithmetic skills are associated with grey matter volume in the left inferior frontal gyrus: A brain-wide association study with 536 children and adolescents

Abstract

Although mental arithmetic is a foundation for mathematical development, it is also the source of large individual differences across development. Although a number of brain-wide association studies have attempted to identify the neural correlates of these individual differences, these studies were largely underpowered and have yielded inconsistent results. In the current voxel-based morphometry study, we merged six structural imaging datasets of children and adolescents (from 7.5 to 15 years) whose arithmetic skills levels were assessed, leading to a combined sample of n=536. Across the whole sample, we found a unique positive relation between arithmetic skills and grey matter volume (GMV) in the left inferior frontal gyrus. We also found positive relations between GMV and arithmetic skills in the bilateral temporal cortex in adolescents. In sum, our results highlight brain-wide associations between arithmetic skills and GMV of perisylvian regions, suggesting a role for language processing in individual differences in arithmetic skills.