TY  - JOUR
A1  - Preusse, Franziska
A1  - van der Meer, Elke
A1  - Deshpande, Gopikrishna
A1  - Krüger, Frank
A1  - Wartenburger, Isabell
T1  - Fluid intelligence allows flexible recruitment of the parieto-frontal network in analogical reasoning
JF  - Frontiers in human neuroscienc
N2  - Fluid intelligence is the ability to think flexibly and to understand abstract relations. People with high fluid intelligence (hi-fluIQ) perform better in analogical reasoning tasks than people with average fluid intelligence (ave-fluIQ). Although previous neuroimaging studies reported involvement of parietal and frontal brain regions in geometric analogical reasoning (which is a prototypical task for fluid intelligence), however, neuroimaging findings on geometric analogical reasoning in hi-fluIQ are sparse. Furthermore, evidence on the relation between brain activation and intelligence while solving cognitive tasks is contradictory. The present study was designed to elucidate the cerebral correlates of geometric analogical reasoning in a sample of hi-fluIQ and ave-fluIQ high school students. We employed a geometric analogical reasoning task with graded levels of task difficulty and confirmed the involvement of the parieto-frontal network in solving this task. In addition to characterizing the brain regions involved in geometric analogical reasoning in hi-fluIQ and ave-fluIQ, we found that blood oxygenation level dependency (BOLD) signal changes were greater for hi-fluIQ than for ave-fluIQ in parietal brain regions. However, ave-fluIQ showed greater BOLD signal changes in the anterior cingulate cortex and medial frontal gyrus than hi-fluIQ. Thus, we showed that a similar network of brain regions is involved in geometric analogical reasoning in both groups. Interestingly, the relation between brain activation and intelligence is not mono-directional, but rather, it is specific for each brain region. The negative brain activation-intelligence relationship in frontal brain regions in hi-fluIQ goes along with a better behavioral performance and reflects a lower demand for executive monitoring compared to ave-fluIQ individuals. In conclusion, our data indicate that flexibly modulating the extent of regional cerebral activity is characteristic for fluid intelligence.
KW  - high fluid intelligence
KW  - geometric analogical reasoning
KW  - task difficulty
KW  - functional magnetic resonance imaging
KW  - parieto-frontal network
Y1  - 2011
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2011.00022
SN  - 1662-5161
VL  - 5
IS  - 3
PB  - Frontiers Research Foundation
CY  - Lausanne
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Mühlbauer, Thomas
A1  - Mettler, Claude
A1  - Roth, Ralf
A1  - Granacher, Urs
T1  - One-leg standing performance and muscle activity: Are there limb differences?
JF  - Journal of applied biomechanics
N2  - The purpose of this study was to compare static balance performance and muscle activity during one-leg standing on the dominant and nondominant leg under various sensory conditions with increased levels of task difficulty. Thirty healthy young adults (age: 23 +/- 2 years) performed one-leg standing tests for 30 s under three sensory conditions (ie, eyes open/firm ground; eyes open/foam ground [elastic pad on top of the balance plate]; eyes closed/firm ground). Center of pressure displacements and activity of four lower leg muscles (ie, m. tibialis anterior [TA], m. soleus [SOL], m. gastrocnemius medialis [GAS], m. peroneus longus [PER]) were analyzed. An increase in sensory task difficulty resulted in deteriorated balance performance (P < .001, effect size [ES] = .57-2.54) and increased muscle activity (P < .001, ES = .50-1.11) for all but two muscles (ie, GAS, PER). However, regardless of the sensory condition, one-leg standing on the dominant as compared with the nondominant limb did not produce statistically significant differences in various balance (P > .05, ES = .06-.22) and electromyographic (P > .05, ES = .03-.13) measures. This indicates that the dominant and the nondominant leg can be used interchangeably during static one-leg balance testing in healthy young adults.
KW  - postural control
KW  - electromyography
KW  - sensory input
KW  - task difficulty
Y1  - 2014
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1123/jab.2013-0230
SN  - 1065-8483
SN  - 1543-2688
VL  - 30
IS  - 3
SP  - 407
EP  - 414
PB  - Human Kinetics Publ.
CY  - Champaign
ER  -