Mathematical cognition requires coordinated activity across multiple brain regions, leading to the emergence of resting-state functional connectivity as a method for studying the neural basis of differences in mathematical achievement. Hyper-connectivity of the intraparietal sulcus (IPS), a key locus of mathematical and numerical processing, has been associated with poor mathematical skills in childhood, whereas greater connectivity has been related to better performance in adulthood. No studies to date have considered its role in adolescence. Further, hippocampal connectivity can predict mathematical learning, yet no studies have considered its contributions to contemporaneous measures of math achievement. Here, we used seed-based resting-state fMRI analyses to examine IPS and hippocampal intrinsic functional connectivity relations to math achievement in a group of 31 adolescents (mean age=16.42 years, range 15-17), whose math performance spanned the 1% to 99% percentile. After controlling for IQ, IPS connectivity was negatively related to math achievement, akin to findings in children. However, the specific temporooccipital regions, were more akin to the posterior loci implicated in adults. Hippocampal connectivity with frontal regions was also negatively correlated with concurrent math measures, which contrasts with results from learning studies. Finally, hyper-connectivity was not a global feature of low math performance, as connectivity of Heschl’s gyrus, a control seed not involved in math cognition, was not modulated by math performance. Together, our results point to adolescence as a transitional stage in which patterns found in childhood and adulthood can be observed; most notably, hyper-connectivity continues to be related to low math ability in this period.
While the influence of cognitive and linguistic capacities and the perceptual features of objects on word-learning skills in people with typical development (TD) are well understood, there is little evidence concerning these mechanisms in people with Down syndrome (DS). Using an eye-tracking task, this study examined the ability of 29 children with DS (mean mental age: 3.44 years) to identify familiar words, fast-map pseudowords to novel objects, retain word-object mappings, and extend these mappings to new objects of similar shape. It also contrasted their word-learning abilities to those of 26 two-to-five-year-olds with TD and examined how cognitive and linguistic skills and perceptual information influenced those abilities. Children with DS were found to have similar identification, fast-mapping, and extension skills as their peers with TD, but retained fewer word-object mappings. Greater retention skills are related to mental age, oral vocabulary, and greater perceptual differences between the target and surrounding objects.
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