Interactive specialization predicts that shortly after birth, large sets of regions and pathways will be partially active during specific task conditions, However, as these pathways interact and compete with each other throughout development, selected regions will come online, be maintained, or become selectively activated or “tuned” as particular pathways dominate for specific task demands. Thus, regional specialization relies on the evolving and continuous interactions with other brain regions over development. If one extends this framework to the network level, the increases, decreases, and maintenance of correlation strengths seen between regions may reflect “specialization” of specific neural pathways to form the functional networks seen in adults.
