Cortical thickness in frontoparietal and cingulo-opercular networks predicts executive function performance in older adults.

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between cortical thickness in executive control networks and neuropsychological measures of executive function. Method: Forty-one community-dwelling older adults completed an MRI scan and a neuropsychological battery including 5 measures of executive function. Results: Factor analysis of executive function measures revealed 2 distinct factors: (a) Complex Attention Control (CAC), comprised of tasks that required immediate response to stimuli and involved subtle performance feedback; and (b) Sustained Executive Control (SEC), comprised of tasks that involved maintenance and manipulation of information over time. Neural networks of interest were the frontoparietal network (F-P) and cingulo-opercular network (C-O), which have previously been hypothesized to relate to different components of executive function, based on functional MRI studies, but not neuropsychological factors. Linear regression models revealed that greater cortical thickness in the F-P network, but not the C-O network, predicted better performance on the CAC factor, whereas greater cortical thickness in the C-O network, but not the F-P network, predicted better performance on the SEC factor. Conclusions: The relationship between cortical thickness and performance on executive function measures was characterized by a double dissociation between the thickness of cortical regions hypothesized to be involved in executive control and distinct executive processes. Results indicate that fundamentally different executive processes may be predicted by cortical thickness in distinct brain networks.

Developing brain networks of attention

“…The executive network is involved in error detection, resolving conflict and other aspects of performance [5**, 6, 7]. The executive network is present in infancy, with the areas activated by perceived error similar in adults and infants, including the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) [8].…”

Resting‐state functional brain networks in adults with a new diagnosis of focal epilepsy

“…Blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signal from the cerebral white matter and ventricles was removed prior to seed-based connectivity analysis using principal component analysis of the multivariate BOLD signal within each these masks obtained from the segmented T1weighted MPRAGE scans (Fallon et al, 2016;Woodward, Rogers, & Heckers, 2011). These networks were chosen as they have been intimately associated with aspects of cognitive functioning disrupted in NDfE (Aikia et al, 1995(Aikia et al, , 2001Ichesco et al, 2012;Kalviainen et al, 1992;Markett et al, 2014;Menon, 2015;Prevey et al, 1998;Pulliainen et al, 2000;Schmidt et al, 2016;Taylor et al, 2010) and/or have been demonstrated to be significantly altered in refractory epilepsy (de Campos et al, 2016;Kay et al, 2013;Wei et al, 2015). We generated seed-to-voxel connectivity maps for each individual for the following reproducibly demonstrated functional networks: the default mode, salience, fronto-parietal attention, language, and sensorimotor networks.…”

“…We generated seed-to-voxel connectivity maps for each individual for the following reproducibly demonstrated functional networks: the default mode, salience, fronto-parietal attention, language, and sensorimotor networks. These networks were chosen as they have been intimately associated with aspects of cognitive functioning disrupted in NDfE (Aikia et al, 1995(Aikia et al, , 2001Ichesco et al, 2012;Kalviainen et al, 1992;Markett et al, 2014;Menon, 2015;Prevey et al, 1998;Pulliainen et al, 2000;Schmidt et al, 2016;Taylor et al, 2010) and/or have been demonstrated to be significantly altered in refractory epilepsy (de Campos et al, 2016;Kay et al, 2013;Wei et al, 2015). Seeds were 10-mm-diameter spheres; the spatial coordinates and anatomical location of network seeds are provided in Table 2 and illustrated in Figure 1.…”

“…These neuroimaging approaches have provided significant insights into cognitive dysfunction in people with neurological, neurodegenerative, and neuropsychiatric disorders (Cataldi, Avoli, & Villers-Sidani, 2013;Li et al, 2015;Woodward & Cascio, 2015). Three of the most investigated networks include the default mode network (key role in internally directed or self-generated thought; Andrews-Hanna, Smallwood, & Spreng, 2014;Greicius, Krasnow, Reiss, & Menon, 2003;Raichle et al, 2001) has dynamic roles in cognitive processing (Ichesco et al, 2012) and is compromised in patients with loss of consciousness (Vanhaudenhuyse et al, 2010), the salience network (key roles in communication, social behaviour, self-awareness, and multiple facets of cognition; Menon, 2015), and the fronto-parietal attention network (key roles in attention, cognitive control, and executive functioning; Markett et al, 2014;Schmidt, Burge, Visscher, & Ross, 2016). Alterations in these three functional networks have been reported in patients with chronic temporal lobe epilepsy and idiopathic generalized epilepsy (de Campos, Coan, Lin Yasuda, Casseb, & Cendes, 2016;Kay et al, 2013;Wei et al, 2015), and such alterations have been inferred to underlie cognitive impairment in (Fisher et al, 2017)); FSAI, focal seizure awareness impaired (formerly complex partial seizure (Fisher et al, 2017)); FTBTC, focal to bilateral tonic-clonic (formerly generalized tonic-clonic seizure (Fisher et al, 2017) studies that have investigated functional networks in patients with NDfE.…”

Funciones ejecutivas y alta capacidad intelectual en niños en edad escolar: ¿se superponen por completo?

“…(Milner, 1982;Donders & Kirsch, 1991;Ardila et al, 2000;Friedman et al, 2006;Arffa, 2007;O'Reilly, 2010;Verdejo-García & Bechara, 2010;Stuss, 2011;Flores Lázaro, Tinajero Carrasco, & Castro Ruiz, 2011;Schmidt, Burge, Visscher, & Ross, 2016).…”