DEVELOPMENTAL CHANGES IN CORTICAL FUNCTION AND ORGANIZATION DURING MIDDLE CHILDHOOD

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Dramatic advances in cognitive and emotional capacities of children take place during middle childhood. The proposed programme of research is aimed at discovering the structural and functional brain changes that underlie these improvements. We will use MRI to examine the brains of children age 7 to 10 years. Children will be scanned twice at two-year intervals in this longitudinal study. The study participants are being recruited from a of group children that are part of a larger study that has run for last 7 years. We will examine changes the connections of brain networks, both structurally by looking at white matter tracts, and functionally, by looking at brain activation patterns. We will explore age related changes in the networks responsible for cognitive processes like memory and inhibition. In addition, we will examine the role of these networks in emotional regulation. MRI tasks and developmental measures have been designed to be engaging and sensitive to differences in cognitive capacities. The research will yield novel and much needed information about typical child development at both behavioural and brain levels and will lay the groundwork for future research examining a number of environmental and genetic influences on brain development.