PNAS: Human cognitive ability develops rapidly in adolescence, and the structural-functional coupling of the brain plays an important role!

From infancy to adulthood, the human brain gradually forms many circuits, which become a hierarchical functional system to realize important behaviors such as self-control, decision-making and complex thinking.these circuits are anchored by white matter pathways, which coordinate the brain activity required for cognition.but the development of white matter is not clear.by mapping the brain development of children and adolescents, the researchers found that the rapid development of human cognition during adolescence, to a certain extent, depends on the long-term development of structural functional coupling in complex brain regions such as prefrontal cortex.this work is supported by the National Institute of mental health and the Institute of life brain, and the research results are published in PNAS.DOI:10.1073/pnas.1912034117 Using diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) and n-regression functional MRI (fMRI) data, the researchers mapped and analyzed the multimodal neuroimaging data of 727 participants aged 8-23 years. It was found that the regional variability of structure function coupling was inversely proportional to the functional complexity of specific brain regions, that is, the lower the degree of structural functional coupling, the more abstract and flexible the responsible behavior was The more complex.structural functional coupling of human brain network also shows that in the process of primate evolution, the related areas of the brain, such as prefrontal cortex, will expand rapidly, which may mean the emergence of human cognitive ability, and its structure function coupling degree is low, which indicates that the structure function coupling of human brain is consistent with the known brain expansion mode.in addition, in children and adolescents, the degree of structural functional coupling in the complex frontal lobes increased.individual differences in structure function coupling are associated with executive function. This study outlines a key dimension of adolescent brain development, namely, coupling remodeling between structural and functional connections, to support functional specialization and cognitive ability.senior author of the study, Theodore Satterthwaite, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, said that since developmental brain connectivity and executive dysfunction are often associated with mental illness in youth, the findings may help identify brain development biomarkers and predict cognition in later life.end reference: [1] development of structure – function coupling in human brain networks during youth [2] research findings changes in neural circuits underlying self-control during intervention