Association between Brain Structure and Cognitive Ability during Adolescence: Insights from a Comprehensive Large-Scale Analysis of 9 to 15 Year-Olds

Significant changes occur in brain structure and cognitive abilities during adolescence. Investigating their association can provide insight into brain-based cognitive development, yet previous studies were limited by narrow brain measures, small samples, and lacking focus on age-related variation. Here, we analyzed a large cohort (N = 8,534, age 9-15) from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development dataset. Using structural MRI and diffusion imaging, we derived 16 regional structural measures and integrated them via morphometric similarity networks to characterize 16,563 regional, connectivity, and hub features. We applied large-scale computational models to investigate their associations with performance on seven cognitive subtests and general intelligence (g), as well as age-related changes. Brain areas most strongly associated with cognitive ability also showed the greatest age-related variability in these associations, located primarily in the frontal, temporal, and occipital lobes. Structural MRI measures exhibited stronger associations with cognition and greater age-related variability than diffusion-derived metrics, while global hub measures showed stronger and more variable associations than local measures. Overall, our study provides a comprehensive and reliable understanding of brain structure-cognition associations during adolescence.