Growth mindset promotes children's working memory performance through cortico-striatal interaction and fronto-parietal activation

Zhao, Y.; Xu, J.; Chen, M.; Hao, L.; He, Y.; Wang, H.; Wang, Y.; Wang, D.; Han, Z. R.; Tan, S.; Men, W.; Gao, J.; Tao, S.; Dong, Q.; Qin, S.

doi:10.1101/2022.07.11.499525

bioRxiv · 10.1101/2022.07.11.499525

Growth mindset promotes children's working memory performance through cortico-striatal interaction and fronto-parietal activation

Zhao, Y.·Xu, J.·Chen, M.·Hao, L.·He, Y.·Wang, H.·Wang, Y.·Wang, D.·Han, Z. R.·Tan, S.·Men, W.·Gao, J.·Tao, S.·Dong, Q.·Qin, S.

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Abstract

Growth mindset--the belief that abilities are malleable through effort--drives motivation, action and achievement. Yet, the underlying mechanisms remain elusive, necessitating a unified framework that integrates cognitive, neural, and developmental processes. Leveraging longitudinal neuroimaging and computational modeling to reveal moment-to-moment decision responses and brain state dynamics during working memory (WM), we show that growth mindset enhances WM development from middle childhood to adolescence via nuanced cortico-striatal network dynamics that balance between brain state flexibility and stability. Behaviorally, children with higher growth mindset exhibited better WM performance both cross-sectionally and longitudinally, attributed to faster evidence accumulation during moment-to-moment information updating, especially under high task demands. Neurally, a higher growth mindset was associated with greater activation of the dorsal striatum, cingulo-opercular (action-mode), and fronto-parietal networks during WM, which further accounted for longitudinal WM improvement and latent evidence accumulation. Such cortico-striatal activation covaried with neurochemical mediators critical for motivation and executive functioning. Analyzing non-stationary network dynamics revealed that growth mindset optimized dynamical organization of cortico-striatal networks, with an activated state highly flexible to support moment-to-moment information updating and a deactivated state remaining stable across blocks to suppress irrelevant information. This suggests a balanced allocation of resources for accumulating evidence while suppressing noise during WM. Together, our findings support a neurocognitive framework in which growth mindset enhances WM development via nuanced orchestration of cortico-striatal networks to enable efficient dynamic computations and foster far-reaching cognitive development.

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Zhao, Y., Xu, J., Chen, M., Hao, L., He, Y., Wang, H., Wang, Y., Wang, D., Han, Z. R., Tan, S., Men, W., Gao, J., Tao, S., Dong, Q., Qin, S.. 2022-07-12. Growth mindset promotes children's working memory performance through cortico-striatal interaction and fronto-parietal activation. https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.07.11.499525

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