Abstract
Functional connectivity within and between Intrinsic Connectivity Networks (ICNs) transforms over development and is thought to support high order cognitive functions. But how variable is this process, and does it diverge with altered cognitive development? We investigated age-related changes in integration and segregation within and between ICNs in neurodevelopmentally 'at-risk' children, identified by practitioners as experiencing cognitive difficulties in attention, learning, language, or memory. In our analysis we used performance on a battery of 10 cognitive tasks alongside resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging in 175 at-risk children and 62 comparison children aged 5-16. We observed significant age-by-group interactions in functional connectivity between two network pairs. Integration between the ventral attention and visual networks and segregation of the limbic and fronto-parietal networks increased with age in our comparison sample, relative to at-risk children. Furthermore, functional connectivity between the ventral attention and visual networks in comparison children significantly mediated age-related improvements in executive function, compared to at-risk children. We conclude that integration between ICNs show divergent neurodevelopmental trends in the broad population of children experiencing cognitive difficulties, and that these differences in functional brain organisation may partly explain the pervasive cognitive difficulties within this group over childhood and adolescence.
Highlights
The human connectome is a complex network optimised to minimise wiring cost and maximise efficient communication (Bullmore & Sporns, 2012)
We first examined whether average functional connectivity within networks and average functional connectivity between networks correlated with age across both groups
Age was significantly associated with intra-network functional connectivity across all but two thresholds when controlling for gender, motion and mean functional connectivity (β = 0.101–111, SE = 0.051–054, p = 0.038–0.052)
Summary
The human connectome is a complex network optimised to minimise wiring cost and maximise efficient communication (Bullmore & Sporns, 2012). This is achieved through a small-world architecture with dense connections between neighbouring brain regions, affording specialisation, and sparser long-range connections, affording global integration (Bullmore & Sporns, 2012). This integration and segregation can be seen in Intrinsic Connectivity Networks (ICNs)—spatially distributed regions of the brain that are highly co-activated and functionally connected. R. Cohen & D’Esposito, 2016)
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