Differential cerebellar and cortical involvement according to various attentional load: Role of educational level

Abstract

Recent imaging studies have evidenced various cerebral patterns dependent on educational level during cognitive tasks in neurodegenerative diseases. Determining relationships between educational status and cerebral activation during cognitive demands in physiological conditions may help to better understand the role of education on cognitive efficacy and functional reorganisation in pathological conditions. We proposed to analyse by functional MRI (fMRI) the relationship between educational status and cerebral activation during various attentional requests in healthy young adults. Twenty healthy young adults completed four successive conditions of a Go/No-go test of increasing complexity under fMRI. An effect of education was observed on attentional performances. Both in-scanner response times and cerebral activation increased during the Go/No-go paradigm. Healthy subjects with higher education exhibited higher activity in cerebellum and lower activity in medial prefrontal and inferior parietal regions compared with the healthy subjects with lower educational levels while performing the conditions of Go/No-go task. Our data evidence the influence of education on automatized strategies in healthy adults by modulating a functional balance of activation between cerebral cortex and cerebellar regions during attentional processes.