Open AccessMother's but not father's education predicts general fluid intelligence in emerging adulthood: Behavioral and neuroanatomical evidence
Author(s) -
Kong Feng,
Chen Zhencai,
Xue Song,
Wang Xu,
Liu Jia
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
human brain mapping
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.005
H-Index - 191
eISSN - 1097-0193
pISSN - 1065-9471
DOI - 10.1002/hbm.22934
Subject(s) - raven's progressive matrices , psychology , cognition , developmental psychology , fluid intelligence , prefrontal cortex , hum , offspring , fluid and crystallized intelligence , working memory , neuroscience , pregnancy , genetics , biology , art , performance art , art history
Lower parental education impairs cognitive abilities of their offspring such as general fluid intelligence dependent on the prefrontal cortex (PFC), but the independent contribution of mother's and father's education is unknown. We used an individual difference approach to test whether mother's and father's education independently affected general fluid intelligence in emerging adulthood at both the behavioral and neural level. Behaviorally, mother's but not father's education accounted for unique variance in general fluid intelligence in emerging adulthood (assessed by the Raven's advanced progressive matrices). Neurally, the whole‐brain correlation analysis revealed that the regional gray matter volume (rGMV) in the medial PFC was related to both mother's education and general fluid intelligence but not father's education. Furthermore, after controlling for mother's education, the association between general fluid intelligence and the rGMV in medial PFC was no longer significant, indicating that mother's education plays an important role in influencing the structure of the medial PFC associated with general fluid intelligence. Taken together, our study provides the first behavioral and neural evidence that mother's education is a more important determinant of general cognitive ability in emerging adulthood than father's education. Hum Brain Mapp 36:4582–4591, 2015 . © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.