Mapping Domain- and Age-Specific Functional Brain Activity for Children's Cognitive and Affective Development

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Developmental Psychology
• Neuroimaging

Background:

• Childhood brain development involves cognitive and affective improvements.
• Current structural MRI brain templates are insufficient for mapping pediatric brain development.
• Need for domain- and age-specific functional brain activity patterns in children.

Purpose of the Study:

• To create age-specific brain functional activity maps for children.
• To develop a toolbox for accessing these developmental brain maps.
• To aid research in developmental neuroimaging for healthy and clinical populations.

Main Methods:

• Integrated functional MRI data from 250 children (ages 7-12).
• Utilized a transparent preprocessing workflow.
• Mapped brain activity across attention, executive function, emotion, and risky decision-making domains.

Main Results:

• Developed a set of age-specific brain functional activity maps.
• Created the Developmental Brain Functional Activity maps toolbox.
• Maps and toolbox are available on the NITRC website.

Conclusions:

• The study provides valuable age- and domain-specific brain activity maps for children.
• The developed toolbox facilitates visualization and download of these maps.
• These resources support future developmental neuroimaging research.