Our finding of increased anterior P3 activity coupled with decreased posterior activity from adolescence to adulthood corresponds with recent imaging data showing a posterior to frontal progression of cortical development from childhood through adolescence and adulthood (Gogtay et al., 2004; Gogtay and Thompson, 2010). During brain development with advancing age, the prefrontal activity becomes progressively more focal and specialized (Tamm et al., 2002; Brown et al., 2005; Durston et al., 2006). This phenomenon is termed “frontalization” or the maturational process of frontal lobes during development, whereby frontal lobes gradually take control of higher-order cognitive functions, such as executive functions and inhibitory control (Rubia et al., 2000; Yurgelun-Todd and Killgore, 2006; Segalowitz et al., 2010; Arain et al., 2013). Furthermore, imaging findings showing late maturation of prefrontal cortex (Fuster, 2002; Gogtay et al., 2004) may explain the higher P3 activity at frontal regions (and lower P3 activity in the posterior regions) in the older subjects compared to the younger group.
