Journal
COMMUNICATIONS BIOLOGY
Volume 4, Issue 1, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PORTFOLIO
DOI: 10.1038/s42003-021-01872-1
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Funding
- National Institutes of Health [HD059205, HD094623, EB022907, MH121069]
- National Science Foundation [DRL-2024856]
- Stanford Innovator Award
- Stanford Maternal and Child Health Research Institute through the Transdisciplinary Initiatives Program
- Taube Maternal and Child Health Research Fund
- Stanford Maternal & Child Health Research Institute
- Taube Family Endowed Transdisciplinary Investigator for Maternal Child Health
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This study investigates the behavioral and network-level changes in children after multi-week cognitive training for math problem-solving skills. After the training, children show changes in modular network organization of hippocampal-cortical circuits that are correlated with gains in problem-solving accuracy and efficiency of memory retrieval. The results suggest potential neurocognitive mechanisms underlying improved problem-solving abilities in children.
Efficient memory-based problem-solving strategies are a cardinal feature of expertise across a wide range of cognitive domains in childhood. However, little is known about the neurocognitive mechanisms that underlie the acquisition of efficient memory-based problem-solving strategies. Here we develop, to the best of our knowledge, a novel neurocognitive process model of latent memory processes to investigate how cognitive training designed to improve children's problem-solving skills alters brain network organization and leads to increased use and efficiency of memory retrieval-based strategies. We found that training increased both the use and efficiency of memory retrieval. Functional brain network analysis revealed training-induced changes in modular network organization, characterized by increase in network modules and reorganization of hippocampal-cortical circuits. Critically, training-related changes in modular network organization predicted performance gains, with emergent hippocampal, rather than parietal cortex, circuitry driving gains in efficiency of memory retrieval. Our findings elucidate a neurocognitive process model of brain network mechanisms that drive learning and gains in children's efficient problem-solving strategies. Supekar, Chang, and Mistry et al. investigate behavioral and network-level changes in children after multi-week cognitive training for math problem-solving skills. After training, children show changes in modular network organization of hippocampal-cortical circuits that are correlated with gains in problem-solving accuracy and efficiency of memory retrieval. Taken together, these results suggest potential neurocognitive mechanisms underlying improved problem-solving abilities in children.
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