Elsevier

Biological Psychiatry

Volume 75, Issue 3, 1 February 2014, Pages 248-256
Biological Psychiatry

Archival Report
Age-Related Differences in White Matter Tract Microstructure Are Associated with Cognitive Performance from Childhood to Adulthood

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2013.05.020Get rights and content

Background

Age-related differences in white matter tract microstructure have been well established across the life span. In the present cross-sectional study, we examined whether these differences are associated with neurocognitive performance from childhood to late adulthood.

Methods

Diffusion tensor imaging was performed in 296 healthy subjects aged 8 to 68 years (mean = 29.6, SD = 14.6). The corpus callosum, two projection tracts, and five association tracts were traced using probabilistic tractography. A neurocognitive test battery was used to assess speed of processing, attention, spatial working memory, verbal functioning, visual learning, and executive functioning. Linear mediation models were used to examine whether differences in white matter tract fractional anisotropy (FA) were associated with neurocognitive performance, independent of the effect of age.

Results

From childhood to early adulthood, higher FA of the cingulum bundle and inferior frontooccipital fasciculus (IFOF) was associated with higher executive functioning and global cognitive functioning, respectively, independent of the effect of age. When adjusting for speed of processing, FA of the IFOF was no longer associated with performance in the other cognitive domains with the exception of visual learning. From early adulthood to late adulthood, white matter tract FA was not associated with cognitive performance independent of the age effect.

Conclusions

The cingulum bundle may play a critical role in protracted maturation of executive functioning. The IFOF may play a key role in maturation of visual learning and may act as a central “hub” in global cognitive maturation by subserving maturation of processing speed.

Section snippets

Participants

Two-hundred and ninety-six healthy individuals (52% male) between the ages of 8.1 and 68.1 years (mean 29.6 ± 14.6; median 25.9) were recruited through local advertisements and by word of mouth. Written informed consent was obtained from participants or from a parent or guardian if the participant was a minor; all minors provided assent. Participants had no history of a DSM-IV Axis I major mood or psychotic disorder as assessed by structured diagnostic interview 20, 21. Other exclusion criteria

Age-Related Differences in WM Tract Microstructure

There were no significant correlations between age and the asymmetry indices of the bilateral tracts (FA left – FA right/FA left + FA right) or significant age-by-sex interactions on tract FA for the slope and curvature terms in the Poisson or quadratic models [level of significance set at p < .0028, to correct for the two slope and curvature terms (a and b terms) in each model and for the nine tracts, that is, .050/ (2 * 9)]. Therefore, FA values were combined for males and females and

Discussion

In accordance with our hypothesis and with previous cross-sectional studies 3, 4, 5, significant FA differences were observed between childhood and early adulthood in a projection tract, two interhemispheric tracts and most association tracts. The uncinate fasciculus displayed little age-related FA difference, which is corroborated to some degree by a longitudinal study of healthy individuals aged 5 to 32 years (31). FA of the ATR showed a negative linear correlation with age from childhood to

References (38)

  • R.C. Oldfield

    The Assessment and Analysis of Handedness: The Edinburgh Inventory

    Neuropsychologia

    (1971)
  • M. Jenkinson et al.

    A global optimisation method for robust affine registration of brain images

    Med Image Anal

    (2001)
  • S.K. Song et al.

    Demyelination increases radial diffusivity in corpus callosum of mouse brain

    Neuroimage

    (2005)
  • N. Eshel et al.

    Neural substrates of choice selection in adults and adolescents: Development of the ventrolateral prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices

    Neuropsychologia

    (2007)
  • G. Bush et al.

    Cognitive and emotional influences in anterior cingulate cortex

    Trends Cogn Sci

    (2000)
  • J. Martino et al.

    Anatomic dissection of the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus revisited in the lights of brain stimulation data

    Cortex

    (2010)
  • C. Beaulieu

    The basis of anisotropic water diffusion in the nervous system–a technical review

    NMR Biomed

    (2002)
  • L.T. Westlye et al.

    Life-span changes of the human brain white matter: Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and volumetry

    Cereb Cortex

    (2010)
  • B.D. Peters et al.

    White matter development in adolescence: Diffusion tensor imaging and meta-analytic results

    Schizophr Bull

    (2012)
  • Cited by (110)

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text