Abstract Prior studies suggest that relationships between regional cortical thickness and domain-specific cognitive performance can be mediated by the relationship between global cortical thickness and domain-general cognition. Whether such findings extend to longitudinal cognitive change remains unclear. Here, we examined the relationships in healthy older adults between cognitive performance, longitudinal cognitive change over three years, and cortical thickness at baseline of the left and right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and left and right hemispheres. Both right IFG and right hemisphere thickness predicted baseline general cognition and domain-specific cognitive performance. Right IFG thickness was also predictive of longitudinal memory change. However, right IFG thickness was uncorrelated with cognitive performance and memory change after controlling for the mean thickness of other ipsilateral cortical regions. Additionally, most identified associations between cortical thickness and specific cognitive domains were non-significant after controlling for the variance shared with other cognitive domains. Thus, relationships between right IFG thickness, cognitive performance and memory change appear to be largely accounted for by more generic relationships between cortical thickness and cognition.

中文翻译：

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老年人皮质厚度与认知之间的具体和一般关系：一项纵向研究


摘要 先前的研究表明，区域皮质厚度和特定领域认知表现之间的关系可以通过全局皮质厚度和领域一般认知之间的关系来调节。这些发现是否延伸到纵向认知变化仍不清楚。在这里，我们研究了健康老年人的认知表现、三年内的纵向认知变化以及左右额下回 (IFG) 和左右半球基线皮质厚度之间的关系。右 IFG 和右半球厚度均可预测基线一般认知和特定领域认知表现。正确的 IFG 厚度也可以预测纵向记忆的变化。然而，在控制其他同侧皮质区域的平均厚度后，右侧 IFG 厚度与认知表现和记忆变化不相关。此外，在控制与其他认知领域共享的方差后，大多数已确定的皮质厚度与特定认知领域之间的关联并不显着。因此，右 IFG 厚度、认知表现和记忆变化之间的关系似乎很大程度上是由皮质厚度和认知之间更一般的关系来解释的。