ArticleHuman brain mapping2015
Linking GABA and glutamate levels to cognitive skill acquisition during development.
Article in Human brain mapping, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed, 69 citations in OpenAlex.
- Safety and efficacy of L-Glutamine in reducing the frequency of acute complications among patients with sickle cell disease: A randomized controlled study.Annals of hematology · 2024Trial
- Gut bacteria and their metabolites may influence our decisions, intelligence, cognition, and consciousness.Gut microbes · 2026Review
- Empirical evidence for gut microbial influence on human brain neurochemistry via the gut-brain axis.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Electrophysiological sexual dimorphism as an early risk marker of alcohol use in adolescence: A longitudinal neuroimaging study.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2026Article
- Sleep-dependent alterations in anterior cingulate cortex excitation-inhibition balance link alterations in BOLD-CSF coupling to cognitive performance in obstructive sleep apnea.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2026Article
- Functional connectivity and GABAergic signaling modulate the enhancement effect of neurostimulation on mathematical learning.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Personalized deep neural networks reveal mechanisms of math learning disabilities in children.Science advances · 2025Article
- Vasopressin regulates social play behavior in sex-specific ways through glutamate modulation in the lateral septum.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2025Article
- Digital twins for understanding mechanisms of learning disabilities: Personalized deep neural networks reveal impact of neuronal hyperexcitability.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Gut-resident microorganisms and their genes are associated with cognition and neuroanatomy in children.Science advances · 2023Article
- The Physiology of Cognition in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Current and Future Challenges.Cureus · 2023Review
- Article
- Human neuronal excitation/inhibition balance explains and predicts neurostimulation induced learning benefits.PLoS biology · 2023Article
- Exploratory genome-wide analyses of cortical inhibition, facilitation, and plasticity in late-life depression.Translational psychiatry · 2023Article
- The Possibility of Eidetic Memory in a Patient Report of Epileptogenic Zone in Right Temporo-Parietal-Occipital Cortex.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Age-related trends in aperiodic EEG activity and alpha oscillations during early- to middle-childhood.NeuroImage · 2023Article
- Maternal separation modifies spontaneous synaptic activity in the infralimbic cortex of stress-resilient male rats.PloS one · 2023Article
- Positive or negative environmental modulations on human brain development: the morpho-functional outcomes of music training or stress.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2023Review
- The effect of parietal glutamate/GABA balance on test anxiety levels in early childhood in a cross-sectional and longitudinal study.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2022Article
- The relation between parietal GABA concentration and numerical skills.Scientific reports · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Developmental adjustments in the balance of excitation and inhibition are thought to constrain the plasticity of sensory areas of the cortex. It is unknown however, how changes in excitatory or inhibitory neurochemical expression (glutamate, γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA)) contribute to skill acquisition during development. Here we used single-voxel proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS) to reveal how differences in cortical glutamate vs. GABA ratios relate to face proficiency and working memory abilities in children and adults. We show that higher glutamate levels in the inferior frontal gyrus correlated positively with face processing proficiency in the children, but not the adults, an effect which was independent of age-dependent differences in underlying cortical gray matter. Moreover, we found that glutamate/GABA levels and gray matter volume are dissociated at the different maturational stages. These findings suggest that increased excitation during development is linked to neuroplasticity and the acquisition of new cognitive skills. They also offer a new, neurochemical approach to investigating the relationship between cognitive performance and brain development across the lifespan.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.