Abstract
Cognitive flexibility, a core aspect of executive functioning, is required for the speeded shifting between different tasks and sets. Using an interindividual differences approach, we examined whether cognitive flexibility, as assessed by the Delis–Kaplan card-sorting test, is associated with gray matter volume (GMV) and functional connectivity (FC) of regions of a core network of multiple cognitive demands as well as with different facets of trait impulsivity. The core multiple-demand network was derived from three large-scale neuroimaging meta-analyses and only included regions that showed consistent associations with sustained attention, working memory as well as inhibitory control. We tested to what extent self-reported impulsivity as well as GMV and resting-state FC in this core network predicted cognitive flexibility independently and incrementally. Our analyses revealed that card-sorting performance correlated positively with GMV of the right anterior insula, FC between bilateral anterior insula and midcingulate cortex/supplementary motor area as well as the impulsivity dimension “Premeditation.” Importantly, GMV, FC and impulsivity together accounted for more variance of card-sorting performance than every parameter alone. Our results therefore indicate that various factors contribute individually to cognitive flexibility, underlining the need to search across multiple modalities when aiming to unveil the mechanisms behind executive functioning.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aiken-Morgan AT, Bichsel J, Allaire JC, Savla J, Edwards CL, Whitfield KE (2012) Personality as a source of individual differences in cognition among older African Americans. J Res Personal 46(5):465–471. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2012.04.006
Albein-Urios N, Martinez-Gonzalez JM, Lozano O, Clark L, Verdejo-Garcia A (2012) Comparison of impulsivity and working memory in cocaine addiction and pathological gambling: implications for cocaine-induced neurotoxicity. Drug Alcohol Depend 126(1–2):1–6. doi:10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2012.03.008
Alvarez JA, Emory E (2006) Executive function and the frontal lobes: a meta-analytic review. Neuropsychol Rev 16(1):17–42. doi:10.1007/s11065-006-9002-x
Amunts K, Schleicher A, Burgel U, Mohlberg H, Uylings HB, Zilles K (1999) Broca’s region revisited: cytoarchitecture and intersubject variability. J Comp Neurol 412(2):319–341
Ashburner J, Friston KJ (2005) Unified segmentation. Neuroimage 26(3):839–851. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2005.02.018
Behrwind SD, Dafotakis M, Halfter S, Hobusch K, Berthold-Losleben M, Cieslik EC, Eickhoff SB (2011) Executive control in chronic schizophrenia: a perspective from manual stimulus-response compatibility task performance. Behav Brain Res 223(1):24–29. doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2011.04.009
Bonnelle V, Ham TE, Leech R, Kinnunen KM, Mehta MA, Greenwood RJ, Sharp DJ (2012) Salience network integrity predicts default mode network function after traumatic brain injury. P Natl Acad Sci USA 109(12):4690–4695. doi:10.1073/pnas.1113455109
Bora E, Fornito A, Radua J, Walterfang M, Seal M, Wood SJ, Yucel M, Velakoulis D, Pantelis C (2011) Neuroanatomical abnormalities in schizophrenia: a multimodal voxelwise meta-analysis and meta-regression analysis. Schizophr Res 127(1–3):46–57. doi:10.1016/j.schres.2010.12.020
Buchsbaum BR, Greer S, Chang WL, Berman KF (2005) Meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies of the Wisconsin card-sorting task and component processes. Hum Brain Mapp 25(1):35–45. doi:10.1002/Hbm.20128
Caspers S, Geyer S, Schleicher A, Mohlberg H, Amunts K, Zilles K (2006) The human inferior parietal cortex: cytoarchitectonic parcellation and interindividual variability. Neuroimage 33(2):430–448
Chechko N, Kellermann T, Zvyagintsev M, Augustin M, Schneider F, Habel U (2012) Brain circuitries involved in semantic interference by demands of emotional and non-emotional distractors. Plos One 7(5). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0038155
Choi HJ, Zilles K, Mohlberg H, Schleicher A, Fink GR, Armstrong E, Amunts K (2006) Cytoarchitectonic identification and probabilistic mapping of two distinct areas within the anterior ventral bank of the human intraparietal sulcus. J Comp Neurol 495(1):53–69. doi:10.1002/cne.20849
Cieslik EC, Bamberger K, Rottschy C, Eickhoff SB (2013) Unterschiedliche neuronale Netzwerkes für die Verarbeitung kognitiver Interferenz—eine ALE-Meta-Analyse. Klinische Neurophysiologie 44(1):P72
Clos M, Amunts K, Laird AR, Fox PT, Eickhoff SB (2013) Tackling the multifunctional nature of Broca’s region meta-analytically: co-activation-based parcellation of area 44. Neuroimage 83C:174–188. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.06.041
Cunha PJ, Nicastri S, de Andrade AG, Bolla KI (2010) The frontal assessment battery (FAB) reveals neurocognitive dysfunction in substance-dependent individuals in distinct executive domains: abstract reasoning, motor programming, and cognitive flexibility. Addict Behav 35(10):875–881. doi:10.1016/j.addbeh.2010.05.005
Delis DC, Squire LR, Bihrle A, Massman P (1992) Componential analysis of problem-solving ability—performance of patients with frontal-lobe damage and amnesic patients on a new sorting test. Neuropsychologia 30(8):683–697. doi:10.1016/0028-3932(92)90039-O
Delis DC, Kaplan E, Kramer J (2001) Delis Kaplan executive function system. The Psychological Corporation, San Antonio
Diamond A (2013) Executive functions. Annu Rev Psychol 64:135–168. doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-113011-143750
Dickman SJ (1993) Impulsivity and information processing. In: McCown WG, Johnson JL, Shure MB (eds) The impulsive client: theory, research, and treatment. American Psychological Association, Washington DC, pp 151–184
Dosenbach NUF, Visscher KM, Palmer ED, Miezin FM, Wenger KK, Kang HSC, Burgund ED, Grimes AL, Schlaggar BL, Petersen SE (2006) A core system for the implementation of task sets. Neuron 50(5):799–812. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2006.04.031
Drag LL, Bieliauskas LA (2010) Contemporary review 2009: cognitive aging. J Geriatr Psychiatr Neur 23(2):75–93. doi:10.1177/0891988709358590
Duncan J (2010) The multiple-demand (MD) system of the primate brain: mental programs for intelligent behaviour. Trends Cogn Sci 14(4):172–179. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2010.01.004
Ebisch SJH, Mantini D, Romanelli R, Tommasi M, Perrucci MG, Romani GL, Colom R, Saggino A (2013) Long-range functional interactions of anterior insula and medial frontal cortex are differently modulated by visuospatial and inductive reasoning tasks. Neuroimage 78:426–438. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.04.058
Ellison-Wright I, Glahn DC, Laird AR, Thelen SM, Bullmore E (2008) The anatomy of first-episode and chronic schizophrenia: an anatomical likelihood estimation meta-analysis. Am J Psychiat 165(8):1015–1023. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2008.07101562
Eysenck HJ (1967) The biological basis of personality. Thomas, Springfield
Fine EM, Delis DC, Dean D, Beckman V, Miller BL, Rosen HJ, Kramer JH (2009) Left frontal lobe contributions to concept formation: a quantitative MRI study of performance on the Delis–Kaplan executive function system sorting test. J Clin Exp Neuropsychol 31(5):624–631. doi:10.1080/13803390802419017
Flehmig HC, Steinborn MB, Westhoff K, Langner R (2010) Neuroticism and speed-accuracy tradeoff in self-paced speeded mental addition and comparison. J Individ Differ 31(3):130–137. doi:10.1027/1614-0001/A000021
Gonzalez-Gadea ML, Baez S, Torralva T, Castellanos FX, Rattazzi A, Bein V, Rogg K, Manes F, Ibanez A (2013) Cognitive variability in adults with ADHD and AS: disentangling the roles of executive functions and social cognition. Res Dev Disabil 34(2):817–830. doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2012.11.009
Haaland VO, Landro NI (2009) Pathological dissociation and neuropsychological functioning in borderline personality disorder. Acta Psychiatr Scand 119(5):383–392. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0447.2008.01323.x
Ham T, Leff A, de Boissezon X, Joffe A, Sharp DJ (2013) Cognitive control and the salience network: an investigation of error processing and effective connectivity. J Neurosci 33(16):7091–7098. doi:10.1523/Jneurosci.4692-12.2013
Hampson M, Driesen NR, Skudlarski P, Gore JC, Constable RT (2006) Brain connectivity related to working memory performance. J Neurosci 26(51):13338–13343. doi:10.1523/Jneurosci.3408-06.2006
Hoffstaedter F, Grefkes C, Zilles K, Eickhoff SB (2013) The “What” and “When” of self-initiated movements. Cereb Cortex 23(3):520–530. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhr391
Jackson PL, Meltzoff AN, Decety J (2005) How do we perceive the pain of others? A window into the neural processes involved in empathy. Neuroimage 24(3):771–779. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.09.006
Kanai R, Rees G (2011) The structural basis of inter-individual differences in human behaviour and cognition. Nat Rev Neurosci 12(4):231–242. doi:10.1038/Nrn3000
Kelly AM, Uddin LQ, Biswal BB, Castellanos FX, Milham MP (2008) Competition between functional brain networks mediates behavioral variability. Neuroimage 39(1):527–537. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2007.08.008
Kurth F, Zilles K, Fox PT, Laird AR, Eickhoff SB (2010) A link between the systems: functional differentiation and integration within the human insula revealed by meta-analysis. Brain Struct Funct 214(5–6):519–534. doi:10.1007/s00429-010-0255-z
Langner R, Eickhoff SB (2013) Sustaining attention to simple tasks: a meta-analytic review of the neural mechanisms of vigilant attention. Psychol Bull 139(4):870–900. doi:10.1037/a0030694
Langner R, Kellermann T, Eickhoff SB, Boers F, Chatterjee A, Willmes K, Sturm W (2012) Staying responsive to the world: modality-specific and -nonspecific contributions to speeded auditory, tactile, and visual stimulus detection. Hum Brain Mapp 33(2):398–418. doi:10.1002/Hbm.21220
Lie CH, Specht K, Marshall JC, Fink GR (2006) Using fMRI to decompose the neural processes underlying the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. Neuroimage 30(3):1038–1049. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.200510031
Lopez-Larson MP, King JB, Terry J, McGlade EC, Yurgelun-Todd D (2012) Reduced insular volume in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Psychiat Res-Neuroim 204(1):32–39. doi:10.1016/j.pscychresns.2012.09.009
Manoliu A, Riedl V, Doll A, Bauml JG, Muhlau M, Schwerthoffer D, Scherr M, Zimmer C, Forstl H, Bauml J, Wohlschlager AM, Koch K, Sorg C (2013) Insular dysfunction reflects altered between-network connectivity and severity of negative symptoms in schizophrenia during psychotic remission. Front Hum Neurosci 7:216. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2013.00216
Menon V, Uddin LQ (2010) Saliency, switching, attention and control: a network model of insula function. Brain Struct Funct 214(5–6):655–667. doi:10.1007/s00429-010-0262-0
Miyake A, Friedman NP, Emerson MJ, Witzki AH, Howerter A, Wager TD (2000) The unity and diversity of executive functions and their contributions to complex “frontal lobe” tasks: a latent variable analysis. Cogn Psychol 41(1):49–100. doi:10.1006/cogp.1999.0734
Moreno-Lopez L, Catena A, Fernandez-Serrano MJ, Delgado-Rico E, Stamatakis EA, Perez-Garcia M, Verdejo-Garcia A (2012) Trait impulsivity and prefrontal gray matter reductions in cocaine dependent individuals. Drug Alcohol Depend 125(3):208–214. doi:10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2012.02.012
Müller VI, Cieslik EC, Laird AR, Fox PT, Eickhoff SB (2013) Dysregulated left inferior parietal activity in schizophrenia and depression: functional connectivity and characterization. Front Hum Neurosci 7:268. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2013.00268
Nichols T, Brett M, Andersson J, Wager T, Poline JB (2005) Valid conjunction inference with the minimum statistic. Neuroimage 25(3):653–660. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.12.005
Nyhus E, Barcelo F (2009) The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and the cognitive assessment of prefrontal executive functions: a critical update. Brain Cogn 71(3):437–451. doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2009.03.005
Orellana G, Slachevsky A (2013) Executive functioning in schizophrenia. Front Psychiatry 4:35. doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2013.00035
Pu WD, Li L, Zhang HR, Ouyang X, Liu HH, Zhao JP, Li LJ, Xue ZM, Xu K, Tang HB, Shan BC, Liu ZN, Wang F (2012) Morphological and functional abnormalities of salience network in the early-stage of paranoid schizophrenia. Schizophr Res 141(1):15–21. doi:10.1016/j.schres.2012.07.017
Radua J, Borgwardt S, Crescini A, Mataix-Cols D, Meyer-Lindenberg A, McGuire PK, Fusar-Poli P (2012) Multimodal meta-analysis of structural and functional brain changes in first episode psychosis and the effects of antipsychotic medication. Neurosci Biobehav R 36(10):2325–2333. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2012.07.012
Raz N, Rodrigue KM (2006) Differential aging of the brain: patterns, cognitive correlates and modifiers. Neurosci Biobehav R 30(6):730–748. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2006.07.001
Rottschy C, Langner R, Dogan I, Reetz K, Laird AR, Schulz JB, Fox PT, Eickhoff SB (2012) Modelling neural correlates of working memory: a coordinate-based meta-analysis. Neuroimage 60(1):830–846. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.11.050
Satterthwaite TD, Elliott MA, Gerraty RT, Ruparel K, Loughead J, Calkins ME, Eickhoff SB, Hakonarson H, Gur RC, Gur RE, Wolf DH (2013) An improved framework for confound regression and filtering for control of motion artifact in the preprocessing of resting-state functional connectivity data. Neuroimage 64:240–256. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.08.052
Schilbach L, Bzdok D, Timmermans B, Fox PT, Laird AR, Vogeley K, Eickhoff SB (2012) Introspective minds: using ALE meta-analyses to study commonalities in the neural correlates of emotional processing, social & unconstrained cognition. PLoS ONE 7(2):e30920. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0030920
Seeley WW, Menon V, Schatzberg AF, Keller J, Glover GH, Kenna H, Reiss AL, Greicius MD (2007) Dissociable intrinsic connectivity networks for salience processing and executive control. J Neurosci 27(9):2349–2356. doi:10.1523/Jneurosci.5587-06.2007
Shepherd AM, Matheson SL, Laurens KR, Carr VJ, Green MJ (2012) Systematic meta-analysis of insula volume in schizophrenia. Biol Psychiatry 72(9):775–784. doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2012.04.020
Soloff PH, Pruitt P, Sharma M, Radwan J, White R, Diwadkar VA (2012) Structural brain abnormalities and suicidal behavior in borderline personality disorder. J Psychiatr Res 46(4):516–525. doi:10.1016/j.jpsychires.2012.01.003
Soubelet A, Salthouse TA (2011) Personality-cognition relations across adulthood. Dev Psychol 47(2):303–310. doi:10.1037/A0021816
Specht K, Lie CH, Shah NJ, Fink GR (2009) Disentangling the prefrontal network for rule selection by means of a non-verbal variant of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. Hum Brain Mapp 30(5):1734–1743. doi:10.1002/Hbm.20637
Sridharan D, Levitin DJ, Menon V (2008) A critical role for the right fronto-insular cortex in switching between central-executive and default-mode networks. P Natl Acad Sci USA 105(34):12569–12574. doi:10.1073/pnas.0800005105
Sutin AR, Terracciano A, Kitner-Triolo MH, Uda M, Schlessinger D, Zonderman AB (2011) Personality traits prospectively predict verbal fluency in a lifespan sample. Psychol Aging 26(4):994–999. doi:10.1037/A0024276
Swanson J (2005) The Delis–Kaplan executive function system. Can J School Psychol 20(1/2):117–128
Swick D, Ashley V, Turken U (2011) Are the neural correlates of stopping and not going identical? Quantitative meta-analysis of two response inhibition tasks. Neuroimage 56(3):1655–1665. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.02.070
Tsuchida A, Fellows LK (2013) Are core component processes of executive function dissociable within the frontal lobes? Evidence from humans with focal prefrontal damage. Cortex 49(7):1790–1800. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2012.10.014
van der Plas EA, Crone EA, van den Wildenberg WP, Tranel D, Bechara A (2009) Executive control deficits in substance-dependent individuals: a comparison of alcohol, cocaine, and methamphetamine and of men and women. J Clin Exp Neuropsychol 31(6):706–719. doi:10.1080/13803390802484797
Veldhuizen MG, Douglas D, Aschenbrenner K, Gitelman DR, Small DM (2011) The anterior insular cortex represents breaches of taste identity expectation. J Neurosci 31(41):14735–14744. doi:10.1523/Jneurosci.1502-11.2011
Verdejo-Garcia A, Perez-Garcia M (2007) Profile of executive deficits in cocaine and heroin polysubstance users: common and differential effects on separate executive components. Psychopharmacology 190(4):517–530. doi:10.1007/s00213-006-0632-8
Vogt BA, Hof PR, Vogt LJ (2004) Cingulate gyrus. In: Paxinos G, Mai JK (eds) The human nervous system. Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp 915–949
Whiteside SP, Lynam DR (2001) The Five Factor Model and impulsivity: using a structural model of personality to understand impulsivity. Pers Indiv Differ 30(4):669–689. doi:10.1016/S0191-8869(00)00064-7
Willcutt EG, Doyle AE, Nigg JT, Faraone SV, Pennington BF (2005) Validity of the executive function theory of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: a meta-analytic review. Biol Psychiat 57(11):1336–1346. doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2005.02.006
Yuan ZN, Qin W, Wang DW, Jiang TZ, Zhang YT, Yu CS (2012) The salience network contributes to an individual’s fluid reasoning capacity. Behav Brain Res 229(2):384–390. doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2012.01.037
Acknowledgments
This study was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, EI 816/4-1; S.B.E. and LA 3071/3-1; R.L. and S.B.E.), the National Institute of Mental Health (R01-MH074457; S.B.E.) and the Helmholtz Initiative on systems biology (The Human Brain Model; S.B.E.).
Conflict of interest
All authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Müller, V.I., Langner, R., Cieslik, E.C. et al. Interindividual differences in cognitive flexibility: influence of gray matter volume, functional connectivity and trait impulsivity. Brain Struct Funct 220, 2401–2414 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-014-0797-6
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-014-0797-6