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

The human brain undergoes rapid development during childhood, with significant improvement in a wide spectrum of cognitive and affective functions. Mapping domain- and age-specific brain activity patterns has important implications for characterizing the development of children's cognitive and affective functions. The current mainstay of brain templates is primarily derived from structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and thus is not ideal for mapping children's cognitive and affective brain development. By integrating task-dependent functional MRI data from a large sample of 250 children (aged 7 to 12) across multiple domains and the latest easy-to-use and transparent preprocessing workflow, we here created a set of age-specific brain functional activity maps across four domains: attention, executive function, emotion, and risky decision-making. Moreover, we developed a toolbox named Developmental Brain Functional Activity maps across multiple domains that enables researchers to visualize and download domain- and age-specific brain activity maps for various needs. This toolbox and maps have been released on the Neuroimaging Informatics Tools and Resources Clearinghouse website (). Our study provides domain- and age-specific brain activity maps for future developmental neuroimaging studies in both healthy and clinical populations.

Automated summary

This study used functional MRI data from 250 children aged 7 to 12 to create age-specific brain activity maps in four domains, and developed a toolbox for researchers to visualize and download these maps. The toolbox and maps are available on the Neuroimaging Informatics Tools and Resources Clearinghouse website, providing valuable resources for future developmental neuroimaging studies.