What do neuroanatomical networks reveal about the ontology of human cognitive abilities?

TL;DR

This study investigates whether neuroanatomical networks reflect the same ontological structure of human cognitive abilities as established in psychology, revealing partial alignment and distinct neural organization.

Contribution

It introduces a neuroanatomical ontology derived from brain networks associated with cognitive tasks, comparing it to the established psychometric ontology.

Findings

Neurometric and psychometric ontologies are partly consistent.

Cortical areas for different abilities are spatially segregated.

Ability-related cortical networks are densely connected via white matter.

Abstract

Over the last decades, cognitive psychology has come to fair consensus about the ontological structure of human intelligence. However, it remains an open question, whether anatomical properties of the brain support the same ontology. The present study explored the ontological structure derived from neuroanatomical networks associated with performance in 15 cognitive tasks indicating various abilities. Results suggest that the brain-derived (neurometric) ontology is partly consistent with the cognitive performance-derived (psychometric) ontology. However, there are interpretable and complementary differences as well. Moreover, the cortical areas associated with different inferred abilities are segregated, with little or no overlap. Nevertheless, these spatially segregated cortical areas are integrated via denser white matter structural connections as compared with the general brain connectome. The integration of ability-related cortical networks constitutes a neural counterpart to the psychometric construct of general intelligence, while the consistency and differences between psychometric and neurometric ontologies represent crucial pieces of knowledge for theory building, clinical diagnostics and treatment.