Development of top-down cortical propagations in youth

Hierarchical processing requires activity propagating between higher-and lower-order cortical areas. How-ever, functional neuroimaging studies have chiefly quantified fluctuations within regions over time rather than propagations occurring over space. Here, we leverage advances in neuroimaging and computer vision to track cortical activity propagations in a large sample of youth (n = 388). We delineate cortical propagations that systematically ascend and descend a cortical hierarchy in all individuals in our developmental cohort, as well as in an independent dataset of densely sampled adults. Further, we demonstrate that top-down, de-scending hierarchical propagations become more prevalent with greater demands for cognitive control as well as with development in youth. These findings emphasize that hierarchical processing is reflected in the directionality of propagating cortical activity and suggest top-down propagations as a potential mecha-nism of neurocognitive maturation in youth.

Automated summary

This study tracks cortical activity propagations using advanced neuroimaging and computer vision techniques in a large sample of youth (n = 388), showing that top-down cortical propagations become more prevalent with greater demands for cognitive control as well as with development in youth.