Back

Modelling cognitive outcomes in the UK Biobank: education, noradrenaline and frontoparietal networks

Bravo-Merodio, L.; Williams, J. A.; Russ, D. R.; Gkoutos, G.; Bellgrove, M. A.; Chechlacz, M.

2023-09-03 neuroscience
10.1101/2023.08.31.555645 bioRxiv
Show abstract

Education is often used as a surrogate measure of so called cognitive reserve (CR) benefiting cognitive functioning in later years. In line with Robertsons theory we tested here a hypothesis that education acting on the noradrenergic system strengthen the right fronto-parietal networks to facilitate CR and maintain cognition throughout the lifetime. We used machine learning and mediation analysis to model interactions between neurobiological features (genetic variants in noradrenergic signalling, structural and functional fronto-parietal connectivity) and education (proxy of CR) on cognitive outcomes (general cognitive ability score) in the UK Biobank cohort. We show that: (1) interactions between education and neurobiological variables better explain cognitive outcomes than either factor alone; (2) among the neurobiological features selected using variable importance testing, measures of right fronto-parietal connectivity are the strongest mediators of the effect of education on cognitive outcomes. Our findings offer novel insights into neurobiological basis of CR by pointing to between-networks connectivity, representing connections linking the default mode network with the right fronto-parietal network as the key facilitator of CR.

Published in PLOS ONE · training set

Matching journals

The top 6 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

1
Human Brain Mapping
○ 329 papers in training set
Top 0.1%
18.2%
Similar papers in this journal
2
NeuroImage
○ 903 papers in training set
Top 1%
11.7%
Similar papers in this journal
3
Cerebral Cortex
◐ 396 papers in training set
Top 0.8%
6.6%
Similar papers in this journal
4
Imaging Neuroscience
● 282 papers in training set
Top 1%
5.4%
Similar papers in this journal
5
NeuroImage: Clinical
○ 144 papers in training set
Top 0.6%
5.1%
Similar papers in this journal
6
Brain Communications
◐ 166 papers in training set
Top 0.8%
4.8%
50% of probability mass above
7
eLife
● 5828 papers in training set
Top 26%
4.8%
8
Neurobiology of Aging
○ 107 papers in training set
Top 0.4%
4.8%
9
Nature Communications
○ 5641 papers in training set
Top 40%
2.4%
10
Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience
○ 74 papers in training set
Top 0.6%
2.4%
11
Network Neuroscience
● 126 papers in training set
Top 0.8%
1.9%
12
The Journal of Neuroscience
● 1025 papers in training set
Top 7%
1.9%
13
Communications Biology
○ 993 papers in training set
Top 14%
1.7%
14
Psychological Medicine
◐ 88 papers in training set
Top 1%
1.7%
15
Scientific Reports
○ 3612 papers in training set
Top 53%
1.7%
16
Translational Psychiatry
○ 260 papers in training set
Top 3%
1.5%
17
Brain, Behavior, and Immunity
○ 116 papers in training set
Top 1%
1.3%
18
Cortex
○ 119 papers in training set
Top 1%
1.1%
19
Molecular Psychiatry
○ 282 papers in training set
Top 4%
1.1%
20
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
○ 43 papers in training set
Top 0.5%
1.1%
21
GeroScience
○ 109 papers in training set
Top 1%
1.1%
22
Brain
◐ 168 papers in training set
Top 3%
1.0%
23
European Journal of Neuroscience
○ 189 papers in training set
Top 4%
0.8%
24
iScience
○ 1154 papers in training set
Top 42%
0.6%
25
Brain Structure and Function
○ 93 papers in training set
Top 2%
0.6%
26
Progress in Neurobiology
○ 47 papers in training set
Top 1%
0.6%
27
Alzheimer's & Dementia
177 papers in training set
Top 2%
0.6%

"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.