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Abstract The neuroanatomical changes that underpin cognitive development are of major interest in neuroscience. Of the many aspects of neuroanatomy to consider, tertiary sulci are particularly attractive as they emerge last in gestation, show a protracted development after birth, and are either human- or hominoid-specific. Thus, they are ideal targets for exploring morphological-cognitive relationships with cognitive skills that also show protracted development such as working memory (WM). Yet, the relationship between sulcal morphology and WM is unknown—either in development or more generally. To fill this gap, we adopted a data-driven approach with cross-validation to examine the relationship between sulcal depth in lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) and verbal WM in 60 children and adolescents between ages 6 and 18. These analyses identified 9 left, and no right, LPFC sulci (of which 7 were tertiary) whose depth predicted verbal WM performance above and beyond the effect of age. Most of these sulci are located within and around contours of previously proposed functional parcellations of LPFC. This sulcal depth model outperformed models with age or cortical thickness. Together, these findings build empirical support for a classic theory that tertiary sulci serve as landmarks in association cortices that contribute to late-maturing human cognitive abilities.
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This content will become publicly available on December 23, 2025
Unique longitudinal contributions of sulcal interruptions to reading acquisition in children
Abstract A growing body of literature indicates strong associations between indentations of the cerebral cortex (i.e., sulci) and individual differences in cognitive performance. Interruptions, or gaps, of sulci (historically known as pli de passage) are particularly intriguing as previous work suggests that these interruptions have a causal effect on cognitive development. Here, we tested how the presence and morphology of sulcal interruptions in the left posterior occipitotemporal sulcus (pOTS) longitudinally impact the development of a culturally-acquired skill: reading. Forty-three children were successfully followed from age 5 in kindergarten, at the onset of literacy instruction, to ages 7 and 8 with assessments of cognitive, pre-literacy, and literacy skills, as well as MRI anatomical scans at ages 5 and 8. Crucially, we demonstrate that the presence of a left pOTS gap at 5 years is a specific and robust longitudinal predictor of better future reading skills in children, with large observed benefits on reading behavior ranging from letter knowledge to reading comprehension. The effect of left pOTS interruptions on reading acquisition accumulated through time, and was larger than the impact of benchmark cognitive and familial predictors of reading ability and disability. Finally, we show that increased local U-fiber white matter connectivity associated with such sulcal interruptions possibly underlie these behavioral benefits, by providing a computational advantage. To our knowledge, this is the first quantitative evidence supporting a potential integrative gray-white matter mechanism underlying the cognitive benefits of macro-anatomical differences in sulcal morphology related to longitudinal improvements in a culturally-acquired skill.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2042251
- PAR ID:
- 10628480
- Publisher / Repository:
- eLife
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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