猴子青春期大脑结构和活动的纵向测量预测认知成熟，这一成果由范德比尔特大学Christos Constantinidis小组经过不懈努力而取得。相关论文于2025年10月27日发表于国际顶尖学术期刊《自然—神经科学》杂志上。

在此，课题组通过跟踪行为、神经元活动和解剖成像测量对猴青少年神经认知发展进行了多层次的纵向研究。前额叶神经活动的轨迹很好地解释了工作记忆的改善。活动的复杂方面在青春期逐渐改变，但即使是简单的属性，如基线率和可变性，对行为也有预测能力。神经活动和认知表现的轨迹可以通过连接额叶和其他大脑区域的远距离白质束的成熟来很好地预测，但令人惊讶的是，人脑体积和厚度的减少却没有预测到，而这正是人类认知变化的基础。他们的研究结果将白质成熟与青少年认知发展中的神经活动变化联系起来。

据了解，在人类和其他灵长类动物中，青春期与认知能力的提高、大脑结构和连通性的变化有关。然而，这些变化如何影响认知表现背后的神经活动仍然未知。

附：英文原文

Title: Longitudinal measures of monkey brain structure and activity through adolescence predict cognitive maturation

Author: Zhu, Junda, Garin, Clment M., Qi, Xue-Lian, Machado, Anna, Wang, Zhengyang, Ben Hamed, Suliann, Stanford, Terrence R., Salinas, Emilio, Whitlow, Christopher T., Anderson, Adam W., Zhou, Xin Maizie, Calabro, Finnegan J., Luna, Beatriz, Constantinidis, Christos

Issue&Volume: 2025-10-27

Abstract: In humans and other primates, adolescence is associated with improvement in cognitive abilities and with changes in brain structure and connectivity. However, how these changes affect neural activity underlying cognitive performance remains unknown. Here we conducted a multilevel, longitudinal study of monkey adolescent neurocognitive development by tracking behavior, neuronal activity and anatomical imaging measures. The trajectory of prefrontal neural activity accounted well for working memory improvements. Complex aspects of activity changed progressively during adolescence, but even simpler attributes, such as baseline rate and variability, had predictive power over behavior. Trajectories of neural activity and cognitive performance were well predicted by maturation of long-distance white matter tracts linking the frontal lobe with other brain areas but, surprisingly, not by decreases in brain volume and thickness, which underlie cognitive changes in humans. Our results link white matter maturation to neural activity changes in adolescent cognitive development.

DOI: 10.1038/s41593-025-02076-0

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-025-02076-0