Brain development during the preschool period is complex and extensive and underlies ongoing behavioral and cognitive maturation. Increasing understanding of typical brain maturation during this time is critical to early identification of atypical development and could inform treatments and interventions. Previous studies have suggested mismatches between brain structural and functional development in later childhood and adolescence. The current study aimed to delineate the developmental matches and mismatches between brain measures from multiple magnetic resonance imaging modalities in young children.
Methods:
Brain volume, cortical thickness, fractional anisotropy, cerebral blood flow (CBF), amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (ALFF), regional homogeneity (ReHo), and eigenvector centrality mapping (ECM) were included. Multi-modal neuroimages for 159 datasets from 67 typically developing preschoolers (2.0–7.6 years old) were collected and analyzed.
Results:
Functional measures (CBF, ECM, ReHo, ALFF) had similar developmental trajectories across regions, whereas development trajectories for brain volumes and cortical thickness were more heterogeneous. Furthermore, within individuals, brain volumes and cortical thickness were very good at predicting individual scans from prior longitudinal scans.
Conclusions:
These findings provide a more detailed characterization of the complex interplay of different types of brain development in the early years, laying the foundation for future studies on the impact of environmental factors and neurodevelopmental disorders on the development matches/mismatches patterns between brain areas and modalities.
Impact Statement
Our study characterized similarities and differences across regions and modalities for developmental trajectories of brain structures and functions in typical developing children. These results lay the foundation for future investigations of different ages and populations to see if aspects such as environmental factors and neurodevelopmental disorders alter developmental patterns across brain areas and modalities, and how these patterns relate to behavioral outcomes. Feature stability was also noted, suggesting that compromised stability may indicate atypical development patterns.
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