General intelligence is associated with working memory-related brain activity: new evidence from a large sample study

Abstract

Psychometric intelligence is closely related to working memory capacity. Here we aim to determine the associations of neural activation patterns during the N-back working memory paradigm with psychometric intelligence and working memory performance. We solved the statistical problems of previous studies using (1) a large cohort of 1235 young adults and (2) robust voxel-by-voxel permutation-based statistics at the whole-brain level. Many of the significant correlations were weak, and our findings were not consistent with those of previous studies. We observed that many of the significant correlations involved brain areas in the periphery or boundaries between the task-positive network (TPN) and task-negative network (TNN), suggesting that the expansion of the TPN or TNN is associated with greater cognitive ability. Lower activity in TPN and less task-induced deactivation (TID) in TNN were associated with greater cognitive ability. These findings indicate that subjects with greater cognitive ability have a lower brain response to task demand, consistent with the notion that TID in TNN reflects cognitive demand but partly inconsistent with the prevailing neural efficiency theory. One exception was the pre-supplementary motor area, which plays a key role in cognitive control and sequential processing. In this area, intelligent subjects demonstrated greater activity related to working memory, suggesting that the pre-supplementary motor area plays a unique role in the execution of working memory tasks in intelligent subjects.

Life-long oligodendrocyte development and plasticity

“…Working memory is a limited capacity storage system that is used to hold and manipulate information over short periods of time [164,165]. Working memory capacity can be increased through training, and correlates closely with measures of "general intelligence" in humans [166]. We trained mice in a T-maze "rewarded alternation" task that relies mainly on short-term memory function, arguably analogous to human working memory.…”

Oligodendrocyte dynamics dictate individual performance outcomes of working memory training in mice

“…This demonstrates an inability of Myrf- cKO mice to improve their spatial working memory performance. The requirement for OL genesis in working memory training is intriguing because working memory capacity is known to underpin all kinds of cognitive abilities and correlates closely with measures of intelligence in humans and animals (Conway et al, 2003; Matzel and Kolata, 2010; Johnson et al, 2013; Takeuchi et al, 2018).…”

Bayesian Interaction Selection Model for Multimodal Neuroimaging Data Analysis

“…It has been shown that working memory brain activity is closely related to fluid intelligence but does not fully explain its variability (Takeuchi et al. , 2018). Thus, including interaction effects between brain activities under different memory load conditions offers a great potential to enhance the prediction on general cognitive ability.…”

“…In the ABCD application with the goal to investigate how functional brain activation under different memory conditions associates with general cognitive abil-ity , we consider three functional brain activation contrast maps derived from the emotional 𝑛-back fMRI data using Statistical parametric mapping (SPM) software (Penny et al, 2011) to measure the low memory load brain activity (0-back vs. baseline), high memory load brain activity (2-back vs. baseline) and working memory brain activity (2-back vs. 0-back). It has been shown that working memory brain activity is closely related to fluid intelligence but does not fully explain its variability (Takeuchi et al, 2018). Thus, including interaction effects between brain activities under different memory load conditions offers a great potential to enhance the prediction on general cognitive ability.…”