Skeletal maturity predicts cognitive abilities in human adolescents

Kovács, Ilona; Kovács, Kristóf; Gerván, Patrícia; Utczás, Katinka; Oláh, Gyöngyi; Tróznai, Zsófia; Berencsi, Andrea; Szakács, Hanna; Gombos, Ferenc

doi:10.1101/2021.05.02.442351

Cited by 4 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 104 publications

(144 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The psychological significance of lifelong visual imagery vividness extremes. Cortex, 130, 426-440. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2020.04.003 Ziman, G., Aleshin, S., Unoka, Z., Braun, J., & Kovács, I. (2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition to recruiting adult participants, we also invited 145 adolescents to fill out the VVIQ questionnaire online. These adolescents have gone through skeletal ultrasonic bone age assessment to determine their biological age (Kovács et al, 2021). Since the gender ratio of this sample was 1:2 (with twice as many girls than boys), we assumed this ratio in the power calculations, and aimed for an ES of 0.8 with a power of 0.9.…”

Section: Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ultrasonic bone age estimation carried out by scanning the wrist area is a recently introduced measure of maturity in developmental research (Kovács et al, 2021), and provides a more reliable and accurate assessment of biological age than the previously used ones. We assessed skeletal maturity (bone age) with an ultrasonic device (Sunlight BonAge, Sunlight Medical Ltd, Tel Aviv, Israel).…”

Section: Bone-age Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ultrasonic bone age estimation was carried out at the school of the participants or at the Research Centre for Sport Physiology at the University of Physical Education, Budapest. The procedure is fully described in the paper by Kovács et al (2021).…”

Section: Bone-age Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Visual imagery vividness declines across the lifespan

Gulyás

Sutori

Lovas

et al. 2021

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The capacity to elicit vivid visual mental images varies within an extensive range across individuals between hyper- and aphantasia. It is not clear, however, whether imagery vividness is constant across the lifespan or changes during development and later in life. Without enforcing the constraints of strict experimental procedures and representativity across the entire population, our purpose was to take a first look at the self-reported level of imagery vividness and determine the relative proportion of aphantasic/hyperphantasic participants in different age-groups. Relying on the frequently used Vividness of Visual Mental Imagery questionnaire, we collected data on a random sample of 2252 participants between the ages of 12 to 60 years. We found a novel developmental pattern describing a declining ability to elicit vivid visual mental images in the group averages of different age-groups from adolescence to middle age. This effect involves both a decreasing proportion of individuals with very vivid imagery and an increasing proportion of individuals with weak imagery as maturation (assessed by boneage estimations in adolescents) and aging progresses. This finding may help to shed light on yet unknown developmental mechanisms of our internal, stimulus-independent processes, and might also help to determine genetic, maturational, and age-dependent factors in the extreme cases of hyper- and aphantasia.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Bone-age Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Bone-age Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Visual imagery vividness declines across the lifespan

Gulyás

Sutori

Lovas

et al. 2021

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The device estimates bone age (in years and months) by measuring the speed of sound and the distance between the transducers, using algorithms based on gender and ethnicity. (See the detailed description of the method in Kovács et al, 2021).…”

Section: Bone Age Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Maturation-dependent vulnerability of emotion regulation as a response to COVID-19 related stress in adolescents

Gerván¹,

Bunford²,

Utczás³

et al. 2021

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic created highly unpredictable circumstances which resulted in increased levels of psychological strain. Here we investigate pandemic-related alterations in emotion regulation in adolescents assessed before and during the pandemic. We also take biological age into account in the response to the pandemic.Methods: We compared baseline data on the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) total scores of a pre-pandemic adolescent cohort (n=241) with those obtained during the second wave of the pandemic (n=266). We estimated biological age based on an ultrasonic boneage assessment procedure in a subgroup of males. We included both grammar school and vocational school students in the 9th and 10th grades and analyzed their data independently.Findings: There is a gender difference in the timing of vulnerability for pandemic-related stress in grammar school students: females are affected a year earlier than males. Vocational school male students mature faster than grammar school male students, and the timing of emotional vulnerability also precedes that of the grammar school students.Discussion: We interpret our findings in a developmental model suggesting that there might be a window of highest vulnerability in adolescent emotion regulation. The timing of the window is determined by both chronological and biological age, and it seems to be different for females and males.Application to Practice: Defining the exact temporal windows of vulnerability for different adolescent cohorts allows for the timely integration of preventive actions into adolescent care to protect mental health during future chronic stressful situations.

show abstract

Dissociating experience-dependent and maturational changes in fine motor function during adolescence

Berencsi

Gombos

Gerván

et al. 2021

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Adolescence is a sensitive period in motor development but little is known about how long-term learning dependent processes shape hand function in tasks of different complexity. We mapped two fundamental aspects of hand function: simple repetitive and complex sequential finger movements, as a function of the length of musical instrumental training. We controlled maturational factors such as chronological and biological age of adolescent female participants (11 to 15 years of age, n=114). We demonstrated that experience improves performance as a function of task complexity, the more complex task being more susceptible for experience driven performance changes. Overall, these results suggest that fine motor skills involving cognitive control and relying on long-range functional brain networks are substantially shaped by experience. On the other hand, performance in a simple repetitive task that explains fine motor speed is primarily shaped by white matter development driven by maturational factors.

show abstract

Skeletal maturity predicts cognitive abilities in human adolescents

Cited by 4 publications

References 104 publications

Visual imagery vividness declines across the lifespan

Visual imagery vividness declines across the lifespan

Maturation-dependent vulnerability of emotion regulation as a response to COVID-19 related stress in adolescents

Dissociating experience-dependent and maturational changes in fine motor function during adolescence

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About