Chunk #35 — Discussion — rs-fcMRI may reflect an interaction between the maturing neural substrate and the use of efficient pathways for general task completion — Changes in the neural substrate over development may lead to more efficient neural pathways for general task completion
Along the same lines, as Fuster [77] has pointed out, we note that myelination is not an indispensable property of utilized axons. Unmyelinated axonal connections are still quite capable of transmitting information. For this reason, the first 7 years of experience dependent statistical learning may indeed result in increases in long distance functional connections well before mature myelination is in place, an idea consistent with the short average path lengths found in even the youngest networks we examined (Figure 3). Thus, it is not surprising that some long-distant functional connections are present in children and do not statistically change with age (Figure 5 and Figure S2).
