Interindividual variability in functional connectivity discovers differential development of cognition and transdiagnostic dimensions of psychopathology in youth

Cognitive and psychological development during adolescence is different from one another, which is rooted in in-dividual differences in maturational changes in the adolescent brain. This study employed multi-modal MRI data and characterized interindividual variability in functional connectivity (IVFC) and its associations with cogni-tion and psychopathology using the Philadelphia Neurodevelopmental Cohort (PNC) of 755 youth. We employed resting state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) and diffusion weighted images (DWIs) to estimate brain structural and func-tional networks. We computed the IVFC of individuals and examined its relation with structural and functional organizations. We further employed sparse partial least squares (sparse-PLS) and meta-analysis to examine the de-velopmental associations of the IVFC with cognition and transdiagnostic dimensions of psychopathology in early, middle, and late adolescence. Our results revealed that the IVFC spatial topography reflects the brain functional integration and structure-function decoupling. Age effects on the IVFC of association networks were mediated by the FC among the triple networks, including frontoparietal, salience, and default mode networks (DMN), while those of primary and cerebellar networks were mediated by the cerebello-cortical FC. The IVFC of the triple and cerebellar networks explained the variance of executive functions and externalizing behaviors in early adoles-cence and then the variance of emotion and internalizing and psychosis in middle and late adolescence. We further evaluated this finding via meta-analysis on task-based studies on cognition and psychopathology. These findings implicate the emerging importance of the IVFC of the triple and cerebellar networks in cognitive, emotional, and psychopathological development during adolescence.

Automated summary

This study used multi-modal MRI data to investigate the functional connectivity of the brain in adolescents and found that the IVFC of the triple and cerebellar networks plays a crucial role in cognitive, emotional, and psychopathological development during adolescence.