Patterns of imbalance states between sub-brain regimes during development in the resting state

TL;DR

This study uses Structural Balance Theory to analyze how anticorrelation patterns in brain networks evolve during development, revealing a trajectory from modular childhood networks to specialized adult networks supporting cognitive control.

Contribution

It applies Structural Balance Theory to resting-state brain networks to characterize developmental changes in imbalance states and anticorrelation patterns across the lifespan.

Findings

Anticorrelation patterns evolve from childhood to adulthood.

Developmental trajectory shows increasing network segregation.

Mature networks support adaptive cognitive control.

Abstract

The functional brain network emerges from the complex, coordinated activity of distinct yet connected regions, which underlie the diverse repertoire of human cognitive functions. Structural Balance Theory (SBT) has been successfully applied to model such nontrivial connections through the analysis of balance and unbalance triadic configurations. In this study, using SBT, we examine the network of imbalanced triads in the resting-state brain subnetworks, which undergo dynamic changes during development. We demonstrate that anticorrelation patterns evolve across the lifespan, reflecting a developmental trajectory from a locally modular organization in childhood to a flexible and reconfigurable architecture during adolescence and finally to a highly segregated and functionally specialized network system in adulthood. This developmental trajectory indicates that the spread of anticorrelations is not an inherent feature of brain organization. This mature organization facilitates a balance between self-referential, internally generated cognitive processes and externally oriented, goal-directed cognition, enabling efficient and adaptive cognitive control. This balance is underpinned by prominent anticorrelations between the Default Mode Network (DMN) and the Frontoparietal Network (FPN) in adulthood. This is while during adolescence these anticorrelations are substantially weaker, suggesting that the maturation of these network connections from adolescence to adulthood establishes a functional architecture that supports the segregation of internal and external cognitive processes. These findings elucidate how the dynamic evolution of anticorrelation patterns in brain networks supports cognitive development across the lifespan, offering new insights into the neural basis of adaptive cognitive control.