Neuroscience Unit, Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, and Advanced Magnetic Imaging Centre, Aalto NeuroImaging, Aalto University School of Science, Espoo, Finland.
PLoS One. 2018 Oct 17;13(10):e0205690. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0205690. eCollection 2018.
Earlier studies on adults have shown that functional connectivity (FC) of brain networks can vary depending on the brain state and cognitive challenge. Network connectivity has been investigated quite extensively in children in resting state, much less during tasks and is largely unexplored between these brain states. Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging and independent component analysis to investigate the functional architecture of large-scale brain networks in 16 children (aged 7-11 years, 11 males) and 16 young adults (aged 22-29 years, 10 males) during resting state and visual working memory tasks. We identified the major neurocognitive intrinsic connectivity networks (ICNs) in both groups. Children had stronger FC than adults within the cingulo-opercular network in resting state, during task performance, and after controlling for performance differences. During tasks, children had stronger FC than adults also within the default mode (DMN) and right frontoparietal (rFPN) networks, and between the anterior DMN and the frontopolar network, whereas adults had stronger coupling between the anterior DMN and rFPN. Furthermore, children compared to adults modulated the FC strength regarding the rFPN differently between the brain states. The FC within the anterior DMN correlated with age and performance in children so that the younger they were, the stronger was the FC, and the stronger the FC within this network, the slower they performed the tasks. The group differences in the network connectivity reported here, and the observed correlations with task performance, provide insight into the normative development of the preadolescent brain and link maturation of functional connectivity with improving cognitive performance.
早期的成人研究表明，大脑网络的功能连接（FC）可以根据大脑状态和认知挑战而变化。在静息状态下，儿童的网络连接已经得到了广泛的研究，但在任务期间却很少，而且在这些大脑状态之间的研究还很少。在这里，我们使用功能磁共振成像和独立成分分析来研究 16 名儿童（年龄 7-11 岁，11 名男性）和 16 名年轻成年人（年龄 22-29 岁，10 名男性）在静息状态和视觉工作记忆任务期间的大脑网络的功能结构。我们在两个组中都确定了主要的神经认知内在连接网络（ICN）。在静息状态、任务表现期间以及在控制表现差异后，儿童的 FC 比成人在扣带-脑岛网络中更强。在任务期间，儿童的 FC 比成人在默认模式网络（DMN）和右侧额顶网络（rFPN）中也更强，并且在 DMN 前区和额极网络之间，而成年人在 DMN 前区和 rFPN 之间的耦合更强。此外，与成年人相比，儿童在不同的大脑状态下调节 rFPN 的 FC 强度不同。DMN 内的 FC 与儿童的年龄和表现相关，因此他们越年轻，FC 越强，而该网络内的 FC 越强，他们完成任务的速度就越慢。这里报告的网络连接的组间差异，以及与任务表现的观察相关性，为青少年前脑的正常发育提供了深入的了解，并将功能连接的成熟与认知表现的提高联系起来。
