Spatiotemporal patterns in cortical development: Age, puberty, and individual variability from 9 to 13 years of age

Humans and nonhuman primate studies suggest that timing and tempo of cortical development varies neuroanatomically along a sensorimotor-to-association (S-A) axis. Prior human studies have reported a principal S-A axis across various modalities, but largely rely on cross-sectional samples with wide age-ranges. Here, we investigate developmental changes and individual variability in cortical organization along the S-A axis between the ages of 9-13 years using a large, longitudinal sample (N = 2487-3747, 46-50% female) from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study (ABCD Study®). This work assesses multiple aspects of neurodevelopment indexed by changes in cortical thickness, cortical microarchitecture, and resting-state functional fluctuations. First, we evaluated S-A organization in age-related changes and, then, computed individual-level S-A alignment in brain changes and assessing differences therein due to age, sex, and puberty. Varying degrees of linear and quadratic age-related brain changes were identified along the S-A axis. Yet, these patterns of cortical development were overshadowed by considerable individual variability in S-A alignment. Even within individuals, there was little correspondence between S-A patterning across the different aspects of neurodevelopment investigated (i.e., cortical morphology, microarchitecture, function). Some of the individual variation in developmental patterning of cortical morphology and microarchitecture was explained by age, sex, and pubertal development. Altogether, this work contextualizes prior findings that regional age differences do progress along an S-A axis at a group level, while highlighting broad variation in developmental change between individuals and between aspects of cortical development, in part due to sex and puberty.

Understanding normative patterns of adolescent brain change, and individual variability therein, is crucial for disentangling healthy and abnormal development. We used longitudinal human neuroimaging data to study several aspects of neurodevelopment during early adolescence and assessed their organization along a sensorimotor-to-association (S-A) axis across the cerebral cortex. Age differences in brain changes were linear and curvilinear along this S-A axis. However, individual-level sensorimotor-association alignment varied considerably, driven in part by differences in age, sex, and pubertal development.