Impact of Mathematical Education on Brain Development

Post by Elisa Guma

What's the science?

The level of mathematical education and attainment in an individual has been associated with better education progress, employment status, mental and physical health, and financial stability, to name a few indices.  Additionally, it has been suggested that mathematical education may affect neural development, impacting neural structure and function. In certain countries, such as the United Kingdom and India, a 16-year-old adolescent may choose to stop studying math for their final two years of high-school education (A-levels), therefore, understanding the putative long-term impacts of this choice is essential and may impact certain educational policies. This week in PNAS, Zacharopoulos and colleagues used magnetic resonance spectroscopic and functional imaging to investigate whether a lack of mathematical education impacts adolescent brain function and neurochemistry.  

How did they do it?

In order to assess whether the continuation of mathematical education had an effect on brain function, the authors recruited 87 A-level (high-school) students in the United Kingdom (~16 years old; 56 females). All participants completed two imaging sessions comprising of (1) magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) with a voxel placed in two regions known to be involved in numeracy (the intraparietal sulcus and the middle frontal gyrus) to measure γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and glutamate (the major inhibitory and excitatory neurotransmitters, respectively) and (2) a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) session to measure brain functional connectivity. Additionally, their anxiety associated with math and their mathematical ability were both assessed at the time of the scan, and 19 months following the first assessment.

The authors ran a binary logistic model to assess whether the GABA and glutamate concentrations measured in the middle frontal gyrus and intraparietal sulcus at study onset could predict whether students had continued to study math. They also assessed whether GABA concentrations in the middle frontal gyrus (as this was the significant biomarker) were predictive of mathematical ability at the second assessment (~19 months later). Next, the authors used the rs-fMRI data to investigate whether a lack of math education was associated with differences in functional connectivity between the middle frontal gyrus and the rest of the brain and whether the GABA concentrations in this region would modulate the observed connectivity.

In the second set of experiments, the authors wanted to determine whether the effects of math education on neural function observed in their first experiment were due to pre-existing differences, or as a result of the math education itself. To do so, they recruited 42 pre-A-level students (~14 years old; 21 females) who had not yet started A-levels but had chosen whether they would study math as part of their A-level curriculum.

What did they find?

First, the authors found that students who chose to cease studying mathematics had lower performance on tests for numerical operations and higher anxiety associated with math. Next, the authors found that (~16-year-old) students who did not pursue math education in their A-levels had lower GABA concentrations in the middle frontal gyrus relative to those who continued their math education and that the GABA concentrations in this region could successfully classify students based on their continuation or cessation of math education. Inclusion of math ability measures was shown to successfully classify whether adolescents lacked math education, but math anxiety was not. The results were consistent after controlling for the choice of other subjects such as biology, chemistry, and physics, while it failed to classify students who lack these other subjects, suggesting that this effect is very particular to mathematical attainment. Finally, GABA levels in this brain region were predictive of future mathematical reasoning ability (reassessed ~19 months later), suggesting that these effects are long-lasting. Interestingly, the functional connectivity between the middle frontal gyrus and the rest of the brain was not affected by math education, however, higher GABA concentrations in the middle frontal gyrus were associated with weaker functional connectivity of this region to the parietal cortex, while low GABA concentrations were associated with increased connectivity.

In their second set of experiments in the younger (pre-A-level, ~14-year-old) cohort of students, students who had chosen to stop studying math showed lower performance than those who had chosen to continue, however, there were no group differences in math anxiety. Moreover, they were not able to classify individuals into math vs. ‘non-math’ educational decision groups based on their middle frontal gyrus GABA concentrations, indicating that the differences observed in the older cohort are likely, not due to pre-existing baseline differences.

What's the impact?

This study suggests that adolescent brain development may be affected by a lack of math education. Lower concentrations of GABA in the middle frontal gyrus were associated with this lack of math education and sustained for ~19 months following examination; however, this association was not present prior to the cessation of math education in younger adolescents.  This work provides insight into the biological impact of a difference in education on brain development. It also highlights the importance that policy decisions regarding education may have on adolescent brain development.  

George Zacharopoulos et al. The impact of a lack of mathematical education on brain development and future attainment. PNAS (2021). The original scientific publication here.