A multicohort geometric deep learning study of age dependent cortical and subcortical morphologic interactions for fluid intelligence prediction.

Journal: Scientific reports
Published Date:

Abstract

The relationship of human brain structure to cognitive function is complex, and how this relationship differs between childhood and adulthood is poorly understood. One strong hypothesis suggests the cognitive function of Fluid Intelligence (Gf) is dependent on prefrontal cortex and parietal cortex. In this work, we developed a novel graph convolutional neural networks (gCNNs) for the analysis of localized anatomic shape and prediction of Gf. Morphologic information of the cortical ribbons and subcortical structures was extracted from T1-weighted MRIs within two independent cohorts, the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study (ABCD; age: 9.93 ± 0.62 years) of children and the Human Connectome Project (HCP; age: 28.81 ± 3.70 years). Prediction combining cortical and subcortical surfaces together yielded the highest accuracy of Gf for both ABCD (R = 0.314) and HCP datasets (R = 0.454), outperforming the state-of-the-art prediction of Gf from any other brain measures in the literature. Across both datasets, the morphology of the amygdala, hippocampus, and nucleus accumbens, along with temporal, parietal and cingulate cortex consistently drove the prediction of Gf, suggesting a significant reframing of the relationship between brain morphology and Gf to include systems involved with reward/aversion processing, judgment and decision-making, motivation, and emotion.

Authors

  • Yunan Wu
    From the Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine and Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute (R.M.W.), Division of Neurointerventional Radiology (D.R.C.), Division of Interventional Radiology (N.X.), and Division of Thoracic Imaging (B.D.A., G.A.M., H.S., R.A., N.P.), Department of Radiology, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, 676 N St Clair St, Chicago, IL 60611; and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill (J.S., S.D., S.C., A.D., S.B., Y.W., A.K.K.).
  • Pierre Besson
    Department of Radiology, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, United States; Department of Neurological Surgery, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago IL, United States.
  • Emanuel A Azcona
    Department of Electrical Computer Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.
  • S Kathleen Bandt
    Department of Neurological Surgery, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago IL, United States. Electronic address: skbandt@gmail.com.
  • Todd B Parrish
    Department of Radiology, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL.
  • Hans C Breiter
    Departments of Computer Science and Biomedical Engineering, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnat, OH, USA.
  • Aggelos K Katsaggelos
    Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.