Fronto-Thalamo-Cerebellar Circuitry in Predicting Cognition and Behavior of ABCD Adolescents

Attention deficit (AD) is a key symptom dimension in mental health and has been found to present as a continuous trait distributed across the general population, as well as a broad spectrum of mental disorders. However, little is known about how the fronto-thalamo-cerebellar (FTC) circuitry relates to AD, despite having been implicated in AD-related studies. The current work utilized the ABCD data collected at 10 years old to investigate the predictive power of FTC gray and white matter features on various neurocognitive and behavioral measures relevant to AD in the general population. Three different predictive models were trained separately to avoid model-related bias. The results support that gray matter volumes in the FTC circuitry more effectively predict working memory performance than the extensively studied fronto-thalamo-parietal circuitry, extending our knowledge on the role of FTC underlying neurocognition and AD.