| Paper: | GS-7.1 |
| Session: | Contributed Talks VII |
| Location: | Ormandy |
| Session Time: | Saturday, September 8, 11:40 - 12:20 |
| Presentation Time: | Saturday, September 8, 11:40 - 12:00 |
| Presentation: |
Oral
|
| Publication: |
2018 Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience, 5-8 September 2018, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Paper Title: |
Smart on the Inside: Functionally Rich Differences in Connectivity Within the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex Are Present in Early Infancy |
| Manuscript: |
Click here to view manuscript |
| DOI: |
https://doi.org/10.32470/CCN.2018.1198-0 |
| Authors: |
Chiara Caldinelli, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland; Laura Cabral, Western University, Canada; Rhodri Cusack, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland |
| Abstract: |
Outwardly, babies are not smart - humans demonstrate little in the way of goal-directed behaviour or intelligence during early infancy. But, this does not imply that they do not have covert executive functioning. To investigate this, rather than measuring behaviour, we used neuroimaging to examine the maturity of the network responsible for executive function and in particular its key hub, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). The DLPFC was recently divided in adults into 26 sub-regions. We find that in adults these sub-regions have distinctive signatures of connectivity with the rest of the brain, reflecting their functional specializations in cognitive tasks. In infants, we found that these distinctive signatures of connectivity were already present by a few months of age. This suggests that infants may be more capable of executive functions than previously thought. |
