Neural organization, the functional connectivity of brain regions, is central to most current theoretical perspectives of attention and cognition. The neural network theorized to subtend attentional control involves connections between the ACC and the medial and lateral regions of the PFC, and begins to develop across the second half of the first year (Posner & Rothbart, 2007). Resting EEG coherence is considered an indicator of the functional association between two separate neuronal populations (Thatcher, 2012); increases in resting EEG coherence over time would be expected to occur for pairs of sites where the underlying regions are becoming integrated as part of a neural network. Because communication between frontal regions of the cortex is theorized to underlie attentional control, the second aim of the study was to test whether changes in resting frontal EEG coherence across the second half of the first year were associated with observed attentional control at age 2. As expected, left frontal EEG coherence at 10-months (controlling for 5-month values) was positively associated with observed attentional control at age 2. Thus, as synaptic connections between left frontal
