Associated Functional Network Development and Language Abilities in Children

Overview

Journal Neuroimage

Specialty Radiology

Date 2021 Aug 6

PMID 34358655

Citations 6

Authors

Ting Qi

Gesa Schaadt

Angela D Friederici

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

During childhood, the brain is gradually converging to the efficient functional architecture observed in adults. How the brain's functional architecture evolves with age, particularly in young children, is however, not well understood. We examined the functional connectivity of the core language regions, in association with cortical growth and language abilities, in 175 young children in the age range of 4 to 9 years. We analyzed the brain's developmental changes using resting-state functional and T1-weighted structural magnetic resonance imaging data. The results showed increased functional connectivity strength with age between the pars triangularis of the left inferior frontal gyrus and left temporoparietal regions (cohen's d = 0.54, CI: 0.24 - 0.84), associated with children's language abilities. Stronger functional connectivity between bilateral prefrontal and temporoparietal regions was associated with better language abilities regardless of age. In addition, the stronger functional connectivity between the left inferior frontal and temporoparietal regions was associated with larger surface area and thinner cortical thickness in these regions, which in turn was associated with superior language abilities. Thus, using functional and structural brain indices, coupled with behavioral measures, we elucidate the association of functional language network development, language ability, and cortical growth, thereby adding to our understanding of the neural basis of language acquisition in young children.

Citing Articles

A semantic strength and neural correlates in developmental dyslexia.

Lukic S, Jiang F, Mandelli M, Qi T, Inkelis S, Rosenthal E Front Psychol. 2025; 15:1405425.

PMID: 39967994 PMC: 11832474. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1405425.

Brain-phenotype predictions can survive across diverse real-world data.

Adkinson B, Rosenblatt M, Dadashkarimi J, Tejavibulya L, Jiang R, Noble S bioRxiv. 2024; .

PMID: 38328100 PMC: 10849571. DOI: 10.1101/2024.01.23.576916.

Triple Interactions Between the Environment, Brain, and Behavior in Children: An ABCD Study.

Zhi D, Jiang R, Pearlson G, Fu Z, Qi S, Yan W Biol Psychiatry. 2023; 95(9):828-838.

PMID: 38151182 PMC: 11006588. DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2023.12.019.

Sources of Heterogeneity in Functional Connectivity During English Word Processing in Bilingual and Monolingual Children.

Sun X, Marks R, Eggleston R, Zhang K, Yu C, Nickerson N Neurobiol Lang (Camb). 2023; 4(2):198-220.

PMID: 37229508 PMC: 10205148. DOI: 10.1162/nol_a_00092.

Improvement of semantic processing ability of Chinese characters in school children: A comparative study based on 2009 and 2019 data.

Zhang Q, Dong X, Song Y, Wang C, Ji S, Mei H Front Neurosci. 2023; 17:1110674.

PMID: 36968480 PMC: 10030507. DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2023.1110674.

References

Xiao Y, Friederici A, Margulies D, Brauer J . Development of a selective left-hemispheric fronto-temporal network for processing syntactic complexity in language comprehension. Neuropsychologia. 2015; 83:274-282. PMC: 4780430. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2015.09.003. View

Karunanayaka P, Holland S, Schmithorst V, Solodkin A, Chen E, Szaflarski J . Age-related connectivity changes in fMRI data from children listening to stories. Neuroimage. 2006; 34(1):349-60. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2006.08.028. View

Zoller D, Schaer M, Scariati E, Padula M, Eliez S, Van De Ville D . Disentangling resting-state BOLD variability and PCC functional connectivity in 22q11.2 deletion syndrome. Neuroimage. 2017; 149:85-97. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.01.064. View

Qi T, Schaadt G, Cafiero R, Brauer J, Skeide M, Friederici A . The emergence of long-range language network structural covariance and language abilities. Neuroimage. 2019; 191:36-48. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.02.014. View

Perani D, Saccuman M, Scifo P, Anwander A, Awander A, Spada D . Neural language networks at birth. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2011; 108(38):16056-61. PMC: 3179044. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1102991108. View

Lu L, Leonard C, Thompson P, Kan E, Jolley J, Welcome S . Normal developmental changes in inferior frontal gray matter are associated with improvement in phonological processing: a longitudinal MRI analysis. Cereb Cortex. 2006; 17(5):1092-9. DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhl019. View

Sowell E, Thompson P, Leonard C, Welcome S, Kan E, Toga A . Longitudinal mapping of cortical thickness and brain growth in normal children. J Neurosci. 2004; 24(38):8223-31. PMC: 6729679. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1798-04.2004. View

Skeide M, Brauer J, Friederici A . Syntax gradually segregates from semantics in the developing brain. Neuroimage. 2014; 100:106-11. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.05.080. View

Natu V, Gomez J, Barnett M, Jeska B, Kirilina E, Jaeger C . Apparent thinning of human visual cortex during childhood is associated with myelination. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2019; 116(41):20750-20759. PMC: 6789966. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1904931116. View

10.

Xu J, Kemeny S, Park G, Frattali C, Braun A . Language in context: emergent features of word, sentence, and narrative comprehension. Neuroimage. 2005; 25(3):1002-15. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.12.013. View

11.

Dehaene-Lambertz G, Hertz-Pannier L, Dubois J, Meriaux S, Roche A, Sigman M . Functional organization of perisylvian activation during presentation of sentences in preverbal infants. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2006; 103(38):14240-5. PMC: 1599941. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0606302103. View

12.

Fonov V, Evans A, Botteron K, Almli C, McKinstry R, Collins D . Unbiased average age-appropriate atlases for pediatric studies. Neuroimage. 2010; 54(1):313-27. PMC: 2962759. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.07.033. View

13.

Vissiennon K, Friederici A, Brauer J, Wu C . Functional organization of the language network in three- and six-year-old children. Neuropsychologia. 2016; 98:24-33. PMC: 5407357. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2016.08.014. View

14.

Ferstl E, Neumann J, Bogler C, von Cramon D . The extended language network: a meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies on text comprehension. Hum Brain Mapp. 2007; 29(5):581-93. PMC: 2878642. DOI: 10.1002/hbm.20422. View

15.

Prunier J, Colyn M, Legendre X, Nimon K, Flamand M . Multicollinearity in spatial genetics: separating the wheat from the chaff using commonality analyses. Mol Ecol. 2014; 24(2):263-83. DOI: 10.1111/mec.13029. View

16.

Skeide M, Brauer J, Friederici A . Brain Functional and Structural Predictors of Language Performance. Cereb Cortex. 2015; 26(5):2127-39. DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhv042. View

17.

Weiss-Croft L, Baldeweg T . Maturation of language networks in children: A systematic review of 22years of functional MRI. Neuroimage. 2015; 123:269-81. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.07.046. View

18.

Yeatman J, Ben-Shachar M, Glover G, Feldman H . Individual differences in auditory sentence comprehension in children: An exploratory event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging investigation. Brain Lang. 2010; 114(2):72-9. PMC: 2888726. DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2009.11.006. View

19.

Vigneau M, Beaucousin V, Herve P, Duffau H, Crivello F, Houde O . Meta-analyzing left hemisphere language areas: phonology, semantics, and sentence processing. Neuroimage. 2006; 30(4):1414-32. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2005.11.002. View

20.

Wang J, Rice M, Booth J . Syntactic and Semantic Specialization and Integration in 5- to 6-Year-Old Children during Auditory Sentence Processing. J Cogn Neurosci. 2019; 32(1):36-49. PMC: 8905464. DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_01477. View