Elsevier

NeuroImage

Volume 33, Issue 3, 15 November 2006, Pages 969-979
NeuroImage

Neural correlates of cognitive efficiency

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2006.05.065Get rights and content

Abstract

Since its inception, experimental psychology has sought to account for individual differences in human performance. Some neuroimaging research, involving complex behavioral paradigms, has suggested that faster-performing individuals show greater neural activity than slower performers. Other research has suggested that faster-performing individuals show less neural activity than slower performers. To examine the neural basis of individual performance differences, we had participants perform a simple speeded-processing task during fMRI scanning. In some prefrontal cortical (PFC) brain regions, faster performers showed less cortical activity than slower performers while in other PFC and parietal regions they showed greater activity. Regional-causality analysis indicated that PFC exerted more influence over other brain regions for slower than for faster individuals. These results suggest that a critical determinant of individual performance differences is the efficiency of interactions between brain regions and that slower individuals may require more prefrontal executive control than faster individuals to perform successfully.

Section snippets

Subjects

Twelve participants (ages 18–27, 7 M, 5 F) were recruited from the Rutgers University—Newark and University of Pennsylvania campuses. Subjects were excluded if they had any medical, neurological, or psychiatric illness, or if they were taking any type of prescription medication.

Behavioral task

Subjects were brought into the laboratory, signed consent, and given a standard battery of questionnaires (to determine their MRI compatibility), a paper and pencil version of the DSST task, from the Wechsler Adult

Behavioral performance

Behavioral analyses indicated uniformly high accuracy with minimal interindividual variability (M = 97.0%, SD = 0.01). RTs were fast with more interindividual variability (1331.5 ms, SD = 177.4) than was observed in accuracy. Slower and less accurate performers had lower DSST scores than faster and more accurate performers (p = 0.02).

Imaging data

fMRI analyses indicated activation in a network of PFC and parietal regions across subjects. There was considerable interindividual variation in the location and spatial

Discussion

In this study, we tested the hypothesis that individual differences in cortical function (as measured by fMRI signal changes) are associated with individual variability in processing speed (as measured by differences in individuals’ DSST performance). The present results supported this hypothesis; we observed considerable variability both in individuals’ DSST performance and in their neural activity in a frontoparietal network that has been associated with working memory (e.g., Curtis and

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by NIH grant MH61636 (BR). This work benefited from conversations with John Gabrieli, Glenn Stebbins and John Duncan. The authors wish to acknowledge the assistance of Dana A. Eldreth, Donovan Rebbechi, and Michael A. Motes.

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