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Conservative and disruptive modes of adolescent change in human brain functional connectivity.

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Váša, František 
Romero-Garcia, Rafael 
Kitzbichler, Manfred G  ORCID logo  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4494-0753
Whitaker, Kirstie J  ORCID logo  https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8498-4059

Abstract

Adolescent changes in human brain function are not entirely understood. Here, we used multiecho functional MRI (fMRI) to measure developmental change in functional connectivity (FC) of resting-state oscillations between pairs of 330 cortical regions and 16 subcortical regions in 298 healthy adolescents scanned 520 times. Participants were aged 14 to 26 y and were scanned on 1 to 3 occasions at least 6 mo apart. We found 2 distinct modes of age-related change in FC: "conservative" and "disruptive." Conservative development was characteristic of primary cortex, which was strongly connected at 14 y and became even more connected in the period from 14 to 26 y. Disruptive development was characteristic of association cortex and subcortical regions, where connectivity was remodeled: connections that were weak at 14 y became stronger during adolescence, and connections that were strong at 14 y became weaker. These modes of development were quantified using the maturational index (MI), estimated as Spearman's correlation between edgewise baseline FC (at 14 y, [Formula: see text]) and adolescent change in FC ([Formula: see text]), at each region. Disruptive systems (with negative MI) were activated by social cognition and autobiographical memory tasks in prior fMRI data and significantly colocated with prior maps of aerobic glycolysis (AG), AG-related gene expression, postnatal cortical surface expansion, and adolescent shrinkage of cortical thickness. The presence of these 2 modes of development was robust to numerous sensitivity analyses. We conclude that human brain organization is disrupted during adolescence by remodeling of FC between association cortical and subcortical areas.

Description

Keywords

MRI, Neurodevelopment, Connectome, Head Movement, Allen Human Brain Atlas

Journal Title

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0027-8424

Volume Title

117

Publisher

Sponsorship
Department of Health (NF-SI-0514-10157)
Medical Research Council (MR/K020706/1)
Wellcome Trust (095844/Z/11/Z)