Multivariate Lesion-Behavior Mapping of General Cognitive Ability and Its Psychometric Constituents

Mark Bowren Jr; Ralph Adolphs; Joel Bruss; Kenneth Manzel; Maurizio Corbetta; Daniel Tranel; Aaron D Boes

doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1415-20.2020

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Multivariate Lesion-Behavior Mapping of General Cognitive Ability and Its Psychometric Constituents

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Multivariate Lesion-Behavior Mapping of General Cognitive Ability and Its Psychometric Constituents

Mark Bowren Jr, Ralph Adolphs, Joel Bruss, Kenneth Manzel, Maurizio Corbetta, Daniel Tranel and Aaron D Boes

The Journal of neuroscience, Vol.40(46), pp.8924-8937

11/11/2020

DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1415-20.2020

PMCID: PMC7659456

PMID: 33046547

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Abstract

General cognitive ability, or general intelligence (g), is central to cognitive science, yet the processes that constitute it remain unknown, in good part because most prior work has relied on correlational methods. Large-scale behavioral and neuroanatomical data from neurologic patients with focal brain lesions can be leveraged to advance our understanding of the key mechanisms of g, as this approach allows inference on the independence of cognitive processes along with elucidation of their respective neuroanatomical substrates. We analyzed behavioral and neuroanatomical data from 402 humans (212 males; 190 females) with chronic, focal brain lesions. Structural equation models (SEMs) demonstrated a psychometric isomorphism between g and working memory in our sample (which we refer to as g/Gwm), but not between g and other cognitive abilities. Multivariate lesion-behavior mapping analyses indicated that g and working memory localize most critically to a site of converging white matter tracts deep to the left temporo-parietal junction. Tractography analyses demonstrated that the regions in the lesion-behavior map of g/Gwm were primarily associated with the arcuate fasciculus. The anatomic findings were validated in an independent cohort of acute stroke patients ( = 101) using model-based predictions of cognitive deficits generated from the Iowa cohort lesion-behavior maps. The neuroanatomical localization of g/Gwm provided the strongest prediction of observed g in the new cohort ( = 0.42, < 0.001), supporting the anatomic specificity of our findings. These results provide converging behavioral and anatomic evidence that working memory is a key mechanism contributing to domain-general cognition. General cognitive ability (g) is thought to play an important role in individual differences in adaptive behavior, yet its core processes remain unknown, in large part because of difficulties in making causal inferences from correlated data. Using data from patients with focal brain damage, we demonstrate that there is a strong psychometric correspondence between g and working memory - the ability to maintain and control mental information, and that the critical neuroanatomical substrates of g and working memory include the arcuate fasciculus. This work provides converging behavioral and neuroanatomical evidence that working memory is a key mechanism contributing to domain-general cognition.

Humans

Middle Aged

Evoked Potentials

Male

Memory, Short-Term - physiology

Temporal Lobe - diagnostic imaging

Psychomotor Performance - physiology

Cognition - physiology

Adult

Female

Parietal Lobe - physiology

Cognition Disorders - pathology

Psychometrics

Diffusion Tensor Imaging

Neuropsychological Tests

White Matter - diagnostic imaging

Animals

Intelligence - physiology

Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Parietal Lobe - diagnostic imaging

Brain Mapping

Aged

Temporal Lobe - physiology

White Matter - physiology

Cohort Studies

Details

Title: Subtitle: Multivariate Lesion-Behavior Mapping of General Cognitive Ability and Its Psychometric Constituents
Creators: Mark Bowren Jr - Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242 mark-bowren@uiowa.edu daniel-tranel@uiowa.edu
Ralph Adolphs - Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, California Technical Institute, Pasadena, California 91125
Joel Bruss - Department of Neurology, Carver College of Medicine, Iowa City, Iowa 52242
Kenneth Manzel - Department of Neurology, Carver College of Medicine, Iowa City, Iowa 52242
Maurizio Corbetta - Departments of Neurology, Radiology, and Neuroscience, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri 63110
Daniel Tranel - Department of Neurology, Carver College of Medicine, Iowa City, Iowa 52242
Aaron D Boes - Departments of Neurology Psychiatry, and Pediatrics, Carver College of Medicine, Iowa City, Iowa 52242
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: The Journal of neuroscience, Vol.40(46), pp.8924-8937
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1415-20.2020
PMID: 33046547
PMCID: PMC7659456
NLM abbreviation: J Neurosci
ISSN: 0270-6474
eISSN: 1529-2401
Publisher: United States
Grant note: S10 OD025025 / NIH HHS T32 GM108540 / NIGMS NIH HHS R21 MH120441 / NIMH NIH HHS R01 NS114405 / NINDS NIH HHS R01 NS095741 / NINDS NIH HHS P50 MH094258 / NIMH NIH HHS
Language: English
Date published: 11/11/2020
Academic Unit: Roy J. Carver Department of Biomedical Engineering; Neurology; Psychiatry; Stead Family Department of Pediatrics; Psychological and Brain Sciences; Iowa Neuroscience Institute; Neurology (Pediatrics); Neurosurgery
Record Identifier: 9984070883502771

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