Chunk #26 — Mature Network Architecture Develops Via Segregation and Integration — Distance Based Comparisons of Child and Adult Regional Relationships
In addition to the aforementioned network analyses, developmental changes in rs-fcMRI defined relationships may be seen by directly comparing the correlation strength between region pairs using t-tests. If regions are developing via segregation of highly related anatomically proximal regions in children and integration of anatomically separate regions into distributed functional modules in adults, the rs-fcMRI correlational relationships between nearby regions should generally decrease with age and the correlations between distant regions should generally increase with age. In fact, when the rs-fcMRI correlation values of every pair of the task control regions described above are compared between children and adults (see Fig. 5), pairs showing significantly higher correlations in children were closer together (mean 45 mm apart in Euclidean distance) than pairs with significantly higher correlations in adults (mean 95 mm apart in Euclidean distance) (Fair et al. 2007). A similar result was seen in rs-fcMRI networks of 90 anatomically defined regions in 7–9 year old children and adults (Supekar et al. 2009). Pairs with higher correlation values in children were closer together (mean 54 mm “DTI wiring distance”) than those
