Developmental changes in patterns of brain activity associated with moment-to-moment adjustments in control
Highlights
► Adjustments in conflict processing investigated with fMRI. ► 58 participants aged 9- to 32-years scanned. ► FP and CI cortex more strongly associated with adjustments in older than younger P’s.
Section snippets
Methods
All procedures were approved by the University Research Ethics Board for Health Sciences Research at Western University, Canada, and are in accordance with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki.
Behavior
Response times are plotted in Fig. 2 as a function of Age, Condition (25%- and 75%-compatible), and Stimulus Type (compatible and incompatible). In general, response times decreased with increasing age, and were greater to incompatible than compatible stimuli, especially in the 75% compatible condition. A Condition × Stimulus Type repeated-measures ANCOVA with Age as a covariate confirmed that older participants were faster than younger participants, r (58) = −.69, p < .001, and that response times
Discussion
While there is some evidence suggesting the ability to prospectively prepare for future cognitive challenges is late-developing (Chatham et al., 2009, Haith et al., 1994, Waxer and Morton, 2011a), relatively little is known about the development of the ability to adjust rapidly to unanticipated cognitive demand. The current study therefore examined age-related changes in patterns of brain activity associated with rapid adjustments in control. Participants aged 9 to 32 years were administered a
Acknowledgments
Funding for this research was provided by an NSERC Discovery Grant to JBM. Thanks to Bianca DeBenedictis for assistance with editing and Figures.
References (38)
- et al.
A developmental fMRI study of the Stroop color-word task
Neuroimage
(2002) - et al.
The feasibility of a common stereotactic space for children and adults in fMRI studies of development
Neuroimage
(2002) - et al.
A review of group ICA for fMRI data and ICA for joint inference of imaging, genetic, and ERP data
Neuroimage
(2009) - et al.
Development of cognitive control and executive functions from 4 to 13 years: evidence from manipulations of memory, inhibition, and task switching
Neuropsychologia
(2006) - et al.
Influence of the COMT genotype on working memory and brain activity changes during development
Biol. Psychiatry
(2011) - et al.
Network discovery with DCM
Neuroimage
(2011) - et al.
The unity and diversity of executive functions and their contributions to complex “Frontal Lobe” tasks: a latent variable analysis
Cogn. Psychol.
(2000) - et al.
Spurious but systematic correlations in functional connectivity MRI networks arise from subject motion
Neuroimage
(2012) - et al.
Functional neural networks underlying response inhibition in adolescents and adults
Behav. Brain Res.
(2007) - et al.
Variations in the catechol O-methyltransferase polymorphism and prefrontally guided behaviors in adolescents
Biol. Psychiatry
(2007)
The development of future-oriented control: an electrophysiological investigation
Neuroimage
Learning the value of information in an uncertain world
Nat. Neurosci.
Congruency proportion reveals asymmetric processing of irrelevant physical and numerical dimensions in the size congruity paradigm
Can. J. Exp. Psychol.
Flexible neural mechanisms of cognitive control within human prefrontal cortex
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A.
Pupillometric and behavioral markers of a developmental shift in the temporal dynamics of cognitive control
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A.
Development of distinct control networks through segregation and integration
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A.
Improved assessment of significant activation in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI): use of a cluster-size threshold
Magn. Reson. Med.
Analysis of functional image analysis contest (FIAC) data with brainvoyager QX: from single-subject to cortically aligned group general linear model analysis and self-organizing group independent component analysis
Hum. Brain Mapp.
Optimizing the use of information: strategic control of activation of responses
J. Exp. Psychol. Gen.
Cited by (20)
Activity‐State Entropy: A novel brain entropy measure based on spatial patterns of activity
2023, Journal of Neuroscience MethodsContextual adaptation of cognitive flexibility in kindergartners and fourth graders
2023, Journal of Experimental Child PsychologyCitation Excerpt :Evidence of flexibility adjustments, based on experiences of contrasted proportions of switches in kindergartners, extends previous research that has revealed their control adaptation in contexts of conflict processing (Ambrosi et al., 2016; Erb et al., 2017; Gonthier et al., 2021. Gonthier & Blaye, 2021; Liu et al., 2018; Rueda et al., 2004; Wilk & Morton, 2012). Because flexibility is still highly challenging in this age group, this finding provides new support for the conclusion that young children are capable of fine-grained modulation of cognitive control, although this control in itself is still partially immature.
The influence of reward anticipation on conflict control in children and adolescents: Evidences from hierarchical drift-diffusion model and event-related potentials
2022, Developmental Cognitive NeuroscienceCitation Excerpt :With regard to the parameter of non-decision time, children had longer non-decision time than adolescents and adults, which indicated that children spent more time for sensory information encoding plus executing the motor response and their conflict control process was less efficient compared to adolescents and adults. Taken together, these findings support that children have immature cognitive control abilities compared to adolescents and adults (Liu et al., 2018), and adolescents may have reached comparatively mature levels in decision thresholds and non-decision time as adults, but their rates of evidence accumulation still develops (Wilk and Morton, 2012). Significant congruency effects were observed for both behavioural performance and neural responses, and individuals were faster in congruent trials than in incongruent trials, which was in the same vein with existing studies (Botvinick et al., 2004; Kerns et al., 2004; Mansouri et al., 2009; Tillman and Wiens, 2011; van Veen and Carter, 2002).
Reactive and proactive cognitive control as underlying processes of number processing in children
2022, Journal of Experimental Child PsychologyPreschoolers are capable of fine-grained implicit cognitive control: Evidence from development of the context-specific proportion congruency effect
2021, Journal of Experimental Child PsychologyCitation Excerpt :These two effects can reflect very local implementations of cognitive control, as implicitly triggered by experience on the immediately preceding trial. Both post-error slowing (Gupta, Kar, & Srinivasan, 2009; McDermott, Pérez-Edgar, & Fox, 2007; Wiersema, van der Meere, & Roeyers, 2007) and congruency sequence effects (Ambrosi, Lemaire, & Blaye, 2016; Iani, Stella, & Rubichi, 2014; Larson, Clawson, Clayson, & South, 2012; Wilk & Morton, 2012) appear to be functional as early as 4 or 5 years of age. The current study was centered on a third type of implicit control: proportion congruency (PC) effects (for reviews, see Braem et al., 2019; Bugg & Crump, 2012).
Conflict control of emotional and non-emotional conflicts in preadolescent children
2019, Biological Psychology