Chunk #38 — Understanding the Typical Network Developmental Pattern of Segregation and Integration Will Aid in Our Understanding of Disordered Development
The finding of network development via segregation and integration has already increased our understanding of network dysfunction in Tourette syndrome (Church et al. 2009a). Church and colleagues demonstrated that children with Tourette syndrome showed immature as well as atypical functional connectivity in the task control networks. Specifically, for functional connections between task control regions that had a known typical developmental profile, the authors determined that for adolescents with Tourette syndrome, several functional connections within both the cingulo-opercular and fronto-parietal task control systems were immature (lower than expected for integrating connections, higher for segregating connections) in comparison to typically developing cohorts of the same age. Additionally, multiple atypical functional connections, with values lying well outside the typical developmental trajectory were observed in the fronto-parietal, but not the cingulo-opercular systems, suggesting that in addition to a global immaturity, there was also aberrant functional connectivity selectively involving the system most involved in rapid, adaptive online control. In a subsequent fMRI study, frank functional abnormality of the fronto-parietal network and immaturity of the cingulo-opercular task control network were confirmed in adolescents with Tourette syndrome (Church et al. 2009b). It remains unclear whether these results are specific to Tourette Syndrome; a topic for future investigation.
