Relation between Brain Structural Connectivity and Processing Speed

In this article, the relation between structural connectivity and processing speed of the brain is studied. Structural connectivity is calculated by using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data and tractography methods for 116 nodes of AAL atlas template. Then by employing the fractional anisotropy (FA) and processing speed task scores, correlation analysis is done to find important connections. The results show that connections in frontal, temporal, hippocampus, insula, cerebellum, and vermis regions are correlated with the processing speed of the brain. Also, connections with positive correlations have higher effects on the processing speed than connections with negative correlations. Predominantly, the higher the FA of the selected connection, the higher the processing speed.