These studies suggest several tentative conclusions. First, selected short-distance edges tend to be strong in children and to weaken over development, in contrast to a subset of long-distance edges, which are typically weak in children, and which increase in strength over development. Second, these developmental increases in edge strengths tend to occur between nodes that are functionally related in young adults, such as edges between nodes within the default mode network, or edges between nodes of the fronto-parietal task control network. Third, community structure is present and strong in graphs at all stages of development. Fourth, as a result of local decreases and long-distance increases in edge strengths over development, communities in children group nodes largely by anatomical proximity, whereas communities in adults group nodes by functional roles. Finally, despite the reorganization of communities over development, graphs are consistently structured in manners that facilitate efficiency at both local and global network scales.
