Functions of cognitive control, including motor and interference inhibition, cognitive switching and performance monitoring, develop late in childhood and adolescence [1, 3, 38] and are mediated by lateral inferior prefrontal cortex (IFC), anterior cingulated cortex/supplementary motor area (ACC/SMA), basal ganglia, and parieto-temporal regions [39, 40]. There is consistent evidence for progressive age-correlated increase of activation in task-relevant lateral and medial fronto-striatal brain regions and in the strength of their inter-regional connectivity during tasks of cognitive control. During withdrawal of an already planned response in the Stop task, progressive increase of activation as well as of inter-regional connectivity, as shown by time-course correlation analyses, was observed in the age range of 10–42 years in a typical inhibition network of inferior fronto-striato-thalamic and cerebellar regions, which was furthermore correlated with faster motor inhibition speed [27] (Fig. 1a). Findings survived when performance-matched subgroups were compared, suggesting that changes were truly age and not just performance-related. Similar findings of progressively enhanced activation with age in lateral and medial frontal regions were observed during Go/No-Go task performance between the age range of 7–22 years [41]
