Large-Scale Brain Network Dynamics Supporting Adolescent Cognitive Control

Adolescence is a time when the ability to engage cognitive control is linked to crucial life outcomes. Despite a historical focus on prefrontal cortex functioning, recent evidence suggests that differences between individuals may relate to interactions between distributed brain regions that collectively form a cognitive control network (CCN). Other research points to a spatially distinct and functionally antagonistic system—the default-mode network (DMN)—which typically deactivates during performance of control tasks. This literature implies that individual differences in cognitive control are determined either by activation or functional connectivity of CCN regions, deactivation or functional connectivity of DMN regions, or some combination of both. We tested between these possibilities using a multilevel fMRI characterization of CCN and DMN dynamics, measured during performance of a cognitive control task and during a task-free resting state, in 73 human adolescents. Better cognitive control performance was associated with (1) reduced activation of CCN regions, but not deactivation of the DMN; (2) variations in task-related, but not resting-state, functional connectivity within a distributed network involving both the CCN and DMN; (3) functional segregation of core elements of these two systems; and (4) task-dependent functional integration of a set of peripheral nodes into either one network or the other in response to prevailing stimulus conditions. These results indicate that individual differences in adolescent cognitive control are not solely attributable to the functioning of any single region or network, but are instead dependent on a dynamic and context-dependent interplay between the CCN and DMN.

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