TY  - JOUR
A1  - Ehlert, Antje
A1  - Poltz, Nadine
A1  - Quandte, Sabine
A1  - Kohn-Henkel, Juliane
A1  - Kucian, Karin
A1  - Aster, Michael von
A1  - Esser, Günter
T1  - Taking a closer look: The relationship between pre-school domain general cognition and school mathematics achievement when controlling for intelligence
JF  - Journal of Intelligence
N2  - Intelligence, as well as working memory and attention, affect the acquisition of mathematical competencies. This paper aimed to examine the influence of working memory and attention when taking different mathematical skills into account as a function of children’s intellectual ability. Overall, intelligence, working memory, attention and numerical skills were assessed twice in 1868 German pre-school children (t1, t2) and again at 2nd grade (t3). We defined three intellectual ability groups based on the results of intellectual assessment at t1 and t2. Group comparisons revealed significant differences between the three intellectual ability groups. Over time, children with low intellectual ability showed the lowest achievement in domain-general and numerical and mathematical skills compared to children of average intellectual ability. The highest achievement on the aforementioned variables was found for children of high intellectual ability. Additionally, path modelling revealed that, depending on the intellectual ability, different models of varying complexity could be generated. These models differed with regard to the relevance of the predictors (t2) and the future mathematical skills (t3). Causes and conclusions of these findings are discussed.
KW  - intellectual ability
KW  - intelligence
KW  - pre-school
KW  - mathematical development
KW  - school mathematics
KW  - longitudinal
KW  - numerical skills
KW  - working memory
KW  - attention
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence10030070
SN  - 2079-3200
VL  - 10
SP  - 1
EP  - 23
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel, Schweiz
ET  - 3
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Liebe, Thomas
A1  - Dordevic, Milos
A1  - Kaufmann, Jörn
A1  - Avetisyan, Araks
A1  - Skalej, Martin
A1  - Müller, Notger Germar
T1  - Investigation of the functional pathogenesis of mild cognitive impairment by localisation-based locus coeruleus resting-state fMRI
JF  - Human Brain Mapping
N2  - Dementia as one of the most prevalent diseases urges for a better understanding of the central mechanisms responsible for clinical symptoms, and necessitates improvement of actual diagnostic capabilities. The brainstem nucleus locus coeruleus (LC) is a promising target for early diagnosis because of its early structural alterations and its relationship to the functional disturbances in the patients. In this study, we applied our improved method of localisation-based LC resting-state fMRI to investigate the differences in central sensory signal processing when comparing functional connectivity (fc) of a patient group with mild cognitive impairment (MCI, n = 28) and an age-matched healthy control group (n = 29). MCI and control participants could be differentiated in their Mini-Mental-State-Examination (MMSE) scores (p < .001) and LC intensity ratio (p = .010). In the fMRI, LC fc to anterior cingulate cortex (FDR p < .001) and left anterior insula (FDR p = .012) was elevated, and LC fc to right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ, FDR p = .012) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC, FDR p = .021) was decreased in the patient group. Importantly, LC to rTPJ connectivity was also positively correlated to MMSE scores in MCI patients (p = .017). Furthermore, we found a hyperactivation of the left-insula salience network in the MCI patients. Our results and our proposed disease model shed new light on the functional pathogenesis of MCI by directing to attentional network disturbances, which could aid new therapeutic strategies and provide a marker for diagnosis and prediction of disease progression.
KW  - attention
KW  - locus coeruleus
KW  - mild cognitive impairment
KW  - resting-state fMRI
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.26039
SN  - 1097-0193
VL  - 43
SP  - 5630
EP  - 5642
PB  - Wiley
CY  - New York, NY, USA
ET  - 18
ER  -