Neurophysiological oscillations and synchronization in cognitive development

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The long-term vision of my NSERC Discovery research program is to understand the role of neurophysiological rhythms and their coordination between brain areas, how these processes develop, and how such maturational shifts are related to emergence of cognitive, perceptual and motor processes. During the next five years, the next critical step will involve performing magnetoencephalographic (MEG) and MRI imaging on a longitudinal cohort of children, together with pen-and-paper psychometric assessments to accurately measure individual differences and changes in ability. These children will be seen at 8 and 11 years of age, shift my program into a longitudinal framework for the first time. This will establish a cohort that will set the stage for understanding how childhood brain development may impact maturational patterns through adolescence and adulthood. During the next five years I will pursue three short-term objectives: 1) Investigate how individual differences in task-dependent and spontaneous network synchrony in children may relate to the individuals' cognitive abilities, 2) Uncover how maturational changes in these neurophysiological networks are expressed in a longitudinal cohort, and 3) Investigate how such changes are related to developmental shifts in haemodynamic networks and underlying brain structure that have been well characterized using MRI. MEG will be recorded for 30 children while they perform a visuospatial attention task, during naturalistic viewing, and during resting state. Structural MRI will measure white matter development, as this is critical for communication among brain areas, together with other structural parameters related to brain development including cortical thickness. fMRI will be used to image haemodynamic intrinsic connectivity networks. Psychometric and imaging measures will be recorded at age 8 and 11 years for each participant. Task-dependent and resting state neurophysiological network connectivity will be estimated using MCMV beamformer reconstruction, PLVs and atlas-based graph summary statistics. Multivariate (PLS) statistics will be employed to investigate hypothesized relationships between neurophysiological networks, cognitive abilities, and brain structure. The outcomes of Objectives 1-3 will advance our understanding of how neurophysiological communication among brain areas develops during childhood, and how this might be related to cognitive development, brain structure and fMRI network connectivity. Importantly, this will establish a longitudinal cohort to transform these my ongoing NSERC Discovery research program into a longitudinal framework that can be used for future study of adolescent and early adult neurocognitive development.