Children's neural responses to a novel mathematics concept.

Autor: Clark CAC; Department of Educational Psychology, Rm. 241 Teachers College Hall, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA. Electronic address: cclark4@unl.edu., Hudnall RH; Department of Educational Psychology, Rm. 241 Teachers College Hall, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA., Pérez-González S; Department of Educational Psychology, Rm. 241 Teachers College Hall, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Trends in neuroscience and education [Trends Neurosci Educ] 2020 Sep; Vol. 20, pp. 100128. Date of Electronic Publication: 2020 May 11.
DOI: 10.1016/j.tine.2020.100128
Abstrakt: Background: Functional MRI studies have suggested a 'frontoparietal shift' over the course of development, whereby children tend to engage prefrontal neural regions to a greater extent than adults when completing mathematics tasks. Although this literature hints that lateral prefrontal regions may be involved in acquiring mathematics knowledge, a key limitation of existing studies is that they have included mathematics content that children already are familiar with as opposed to examining the dynamic learning process. We aimed to address this gap by examining children's neural responses when exposed to a new, unfamiliar mathematics concept.
Method: Eighteen 8-11 year old children viewed blocked demonstrations of base-2/binary (unfamiliar) and base-10/decimal (familiar) number systems while undergoing functional MRI (fMRI). Children's behavioral understanding of binary numbers was measured between fMRI runs.
Results: Counter to hypotheses, there were no overall differences in prefrontal activity for binary relative to decimal blocks. However, children with higher levels of behavioral understanding of the novel, binary concept showed enhanced neural activity in the left rostral middle frontal gyrus specifically during binary concept exposure. They also showed enhanced connectivity between this region and pre-and post-central gyri and left parahippocampal regions.
Conclusions: Individual differences in children's behavioral grasp of a new mathematics concept correlate with prefrontal activity and functional connectivity during exposure to the concept, suggesting that rostral prefrontal cortex may play a role in mathematics learning.
Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest There are no conflicts of interest related to this research.
(Copyright © 2020 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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