Associated functional network development and language abilities in children

Abstract

During childhood, the brain is gradually converging to the efficient functional architecture observed in adults. How the brain's functional architecture evolves with age, particularly in young children, is however, not well understood. We examined the functional connectivity of the core language regions, in association with cortical growth and language abilities, in 175 young children in the age range of 4 to 9 years. We analyzed the brain's developmental changes using resting-state functional and T1-weighted structural magnetic resonance imaging data. The results showed increased functional connectivity strength with age between the pars triangularis of the left inferior frontal gyrus and left temporoparietal regions (cohen's d = 0.54, CI : 0.24 - 0.84), associated with children's language abilities. Stronger functional connectivity between bilateral prefrontal and temporoparietal regions was associated with better language abilities regardless of age. In addition, the stronger functional connectivity between the left inferior frontal and temporoparietal regions was associated with larger surface area and thinner cortical thickness in these regions, which in turn was associated with superior language abilities. Thus, using functional and structural brain indices, coupled with behavioral measures, we elucidate the association of functional language network development, language ability, and cortical growth, thereby adding to our understanding of the neural basis of language acquisition in young children.

Sources of Heterogeneity in Functional Connectivity During English Word Processing in Bilingual and Monolingual Children

“…Findings revealed that children who exhibited stronger functional connectivity during this auditory task between the left IFG and right STG regions at age 4 years had better reading proficiency a year later. Building upon this and similar prior findings (Qi et al, 2021), we aimed to advance beyond the traditional functional correlation methods that average across diverse speakers. Here we estimate individualized neural networks to better capture sources of heterogeneity in children's emerging neural architecture for language and how the neural networks speak to children's developing language and literacy skills (Beltz et al, 2016;Arredondo et al, 2022).…”

“…Functional connectivity studies reveal how brain regions work together during a language task and how these brain connections relate to developmental outcomes in language proficiency (Friederici et al, 2011;Jasińska et al, 2020;Qi et al, 2021;Xiao et al, 2016;Yu et al, 2018Yu et al, , 2021. This research generally suggests a gradual shift in the development of inter-(between) and then intra-(within) hemisphere associations.…”

The age of reason: Functional brain network development during childhood

“…An analysis of the same sample also found that age was negatively associated with connectivity between seeds in the dorsal attention system (intraparietal sulcus, frontal eye fields) and areas of the default mode system (Rohr et al (2017), 𝑛 = 44). In general, more mature patterns of connectivity are associated with better performance on measures of attention and cognition (Rohr et al, 2017(Rohr et al, , 2018Bruchhage et al, 2020;Qi et al, 2021). These studies of young children have examined connectivity between specific regions or subsets of regions, but not the architecture of intrinsic cortical networks at rest.…”

Children’s syntax is supported by the maturation of BA44 at 4 years, but of the posterior STS at 3 years of age

“…The copyright holder for this this version posted September 18, 2022. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.09.17.508373 doi: bioRxiv preprint indices in the left IFG, Fengler et al (2015) also found an association in the inferior parietal lobe and posterior superior temporal gyrus from 5 years of age. While several of these studies have investigated brain structural changes involved in sentence comprehension from 4 or 5 years and older (Fengler et al 2015;Qi et al 2019Qi et al , 2021, the maturational changes of those brain structures that support early syntax acquisition before the age of 4 years, when children start to master more complex sentence structures, remain largely unknown.…”

“…In early preschool age, the relation of cortical brain structure and cognitive function has rarely been studied to date, and, in particular, research on the relation to early language and syntactic development is lacking. In children aged 4 years and older, some evidence exists that language development is related to cortical maturation in the language network, and particularly the left IFG (Sowell 2004; Lu et al 2006; Richardson et al 2010; Fengler et al 2015; Qi et al 2019, 2021). In addition to a relation of children’s sentence comprehension abilities with gray matter indices in the left IFG, Fengler et al (2015) also found an association in the inferior parietal lobe and posterior superior temporal gyrus from 5 years of age.…”