Neural correlates of orbital telorism

Orbital telorism, the interocular distance, is a clinically informative and in extremes is considered a mi-nor physical anomaly. While its extremes, hypo- and hypertelorism, have been linked to disorders often related to cognitive ability, little is known about the neural correlates of normal variation of telorism within the general population. We derived measures of orbital telorism from cranial magnetic reso-nance imaging (MRI) by calculating the distance between the eyeball center of gravity in two population-based datasets (N=5,653, N=29,824, Mean age 64.66, 63.75 years). This measure was found to be related grey matter tissue density within numerous regions of the brain, including, but surprisingly not limited to, the frontal regions, in both positive and negative directions. Additionally, telorism was related to several cognitive functions, such as Perdue Pegboard test (Beta, P-value, (CI95%) -0.02, 1.63x10-7(-0.03;-0.01)) and fluid intelligence (0.02, 4.75x10-06 (0.01:0.02)), with some relationships driven by individuals with a smaller orbital telorism. This is reflective of the higher prevalence of hypo-telorism in developmental disorders, specifically those that are lower functioning. This study suggests, despite previous links only made in clinical extremes, that orbital telorism holds some relation to structural brain development and cognitive function in the general population. This relationship is likely driven by shared developmental periods.

Brain Activities in a Skilled versus a Novice Artist: An fMRI Study

Functional Magnetic Reso-nance Imaging (fMRI) scans of a skilled portrait artist and of a non-artist were made as each drew a series of faces. There was a dis-cernible increase in blood flow in the right-posterior parietal region of the brain for both the artist and non-artist during the task, a site normally associated with facial per-ception and processing. However, the level of activation appeared lower in the expert than in the nov-ice, suggesting that a skilled artist may process facial information more efficiently. In addition, the skilled artist showed greater acti-vation in the right frontal area of the brain than did the novice, which the author posits indicates that such an artist uses “higher-or-der” cognitive functions, such as the formation of associations and planning motor movements, when viewing and drawing a face.