Association Between Intelligence and Cortical Thickness in Adolescents: Evidence from the ABCD Study
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The relationship between the intelligence and brain morphology is warmly concerned in cognitive field. General intelligence can be defined as the weighted sum of fluid and crystallized intelligence. Fluid abilities depend on genes and genes expression and less depend on experiences. Thus, these abilities develop rapidly during childhood, usually peaking in adulthood and then decreasing with age. Crystallized abilities, in contrast, more depend on experiences. However, the biological foundation of human intelligence remains to be revealed. In this study, by utilizing the structural brain magnetic resonance imaging from a large sample of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, the largest cohort focusing in brain development and child healthy in the United States, we aim to identify the association between intelligence and cortical thickness in adolescents both from commonality and individuality. We use ABCD data set around 11,000 samples cortical thickness and cognitive scores to analysis their association, both from mean and dispersion aspects. Using double generalized linear model, the mean model results is almost the same as generalized linear model, we found crystallized intelligence are more associated with cortical thickness than fluid intelligence in adolescents around 10 years old. We found the frontal gyri regions thickness are negative with intelligence, which is consistent with previous study.Intelligence appears to be associated with widespread increased mean differences and decreased heterogeneity in cortical thickness. The results seem to support the notion that cognitive function has high heterogeneity. Higher cognitive abilities have lower heterogeneity, and lower cognitive abilities has higher heterogeneity.
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