title: Mathematically gifted adolescents mobilize enhanced workspace configuration of theta cortical network during deductive reasoning.
abstract: Previous studies have established the importance of the fronto-parietal brain network in the information processing of reasoning. At the level of cortical source analysis, this eletroencepalogram (EEG) study investigates the functional reorganization of the theta-band (4-8Hz) neurocognitive network of mathematically gifted adolescents during deductive reasoning. Depending on the dense increase of long-range phase synchronizations in the reasoning process, math-gifted adolescents show more significant adaptive reorganization and enhanced "workspace" configuration in the theta network as compared with average-ability control subjects. The salient areas are mainly located in the anterior cortical vertices of the fronto-parietal network. Further correlation analyses have shown that the enhanced workspace configuration with respect to the global topological metrics of the theta network in math-gifted subjects is correlated with the intensive frontal midline theta (fm theta) response that is related to strong neural effort for cognitive events. These results suggest that by investing more cognitive resources math-gifted adolescents temporally mobilize an enhanced task-related global neuronal workspace, which is manifested as a highly integrated fronto-parietal information processing network during the reasoning process.
authors.affiliation: Key Lab of Child Development and Learning Science of Ministry of Education, Research Center for Learning Science, Southeast University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210096, China.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Key Lab of Child Development and Learning Science of Ministry of Education, Research Center for Learning Science, Southeast University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210096, China; School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, University of Essex, Colchester, UK.
authors.forename: J Q
authors.initials: JQ
authors.lastname: Gan
authors.affiliation: Key Lab of Child Development and Learning Science of Ministry of Education, Research Center for Learning Science, Southeast University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210096, China. Electronic address: hxwang@seu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D002672:Child, Gifted; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D055641:Mathematical Concepts; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000502:physiology; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011594:Psychometrics; D011930:Reaction Time; D012146:Rest; D013826:Theta Rhythm / Q000502:physiology*; D013850:Thinking / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: cortical source analysis; frontal midline theta response; functional network reorganization; graph theory; math-gifted adolescents; workspace configuration