Neurodevelopmental changes in brain structure and function across middle childhood

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The proposed programme of research is aimed at discovering the structural and functional brain changes that underlie the advances in cognitive and emotional capacities of children during middle childhood. The brain is organized into networks that consist of individual regions that collaborate to perform diverse cognitive functions. Magnetic Resonance Imaging can provide information about the brain both structurally, by examining white matter tracts and functionally, by looking at brain activation patterns. We plan utilize a large imaging data repository and to apply methods that combine these two information sources to yield an anatomically weighted measure of functional connectivity. In addition, we will make use of a novel dual-task fMRI paradigm involving emotion regulation and response inhibition. We have a cohort of children that have been scanned at age 7 years and over the next 4 years will be rescanned when they turn 13 years of age. We use information gained from the analysis of repository data to guide our dual-task analyses. Furthermore, will examine age related changes in the networks responsible for cognitive control and emotional regulation. Here we advance the theory that improvements in emotional regulation capacities are tied developmentally to the consolidation of network structures involved in cognitive control. Our MRI tasks and developmental measures have been designed to be engaging and sensitive to differences in cognitive / emotional processing capacities. The research will yield novel and much needed information about typical child development at both behavioural and brain levels. The study is longitudinal and therefore promises to provide valuable information about normal developmental trajectories of networks. In addition, very few studies to date have made combined use of functional and structural MRI connectivity measures to examine brain changes during childhood. This work offers to advance current methods of anatomically weighted functional connectivity analyses. Finally, this research will lay the groundwork for future research examining a number of environmental and genetic influences on brain development.