Dynamic functional connectivity associated with prospective memory success in children

To remember the prospective intention successfully, going back and forth between the background task and the intention, i.e., the dynamics of these multiple processes can be critical. An executive function like task switching has been associated with the success of prospective memory (PM) in children, but the neural mechanism of PM in children has not been investigated. The purpose of this study was to reveal the dynamic functional connectivity underlying the success of PM in children. Healthy 108 children, aged 7 to 15, were engaged in a single trial PM task, with a 30-min delay. Temporal variabilities in their resting-state functional connectivity were analyzed, using sliding windows with seed regions of interest ROIs of the PM network. About 70% of children successfully remembered the intention; they showed greater dynamics in neural connectivity between the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and intraparietal sulcus, and between the right DLPFC and insula as compared to children with PM failure. Everyday activities and the usual attention to ongoing processes can be associated with alertness in the right frontoparietal network and internal-state monitoring in the insula network, and those dynamics might be associated with one-time event PM success in children.