Charting brain functional development from birth to 6 years of age

Weiyan Yin; Tengfei Li; Zhengwang Wu; Sheng-Che Hung; Dan Hu; Yiding Gui; Seoyoon Cho; Yue Sun; Mackenzie Allan Woodburn; Li Wang; Gang Li; Joseph Piven; Jed T Elison; Changwei W Wu; Hongtu Zhu; Jessica R Cohen; Weili Lin; UNC/UMN Baby Connectome Project Consortium

doi:10.1038/s41562-025-02160-2

Charting brain functional development from birth to 6 years of age

Nat Hum Behav. 2025 Apr 15. doi: 10.1038/s41562-025-02160-2. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Weiyan Yin^{1

2}, Tengfei Li^{1

2}, Zhengwang Wu^{1

2}, Sheng-Che Hung^{1

2}, Dan Hu^{1

2}, Yiding Gui^{1

3}, Seoyoon Cho^{1

4}, Yue Sun^{1

2

5}, Mackenzie Allan Woodburn⁶, Li Wang^{1

2}, Gang Li^{1

2}, Joseph Piven⁷, Jed T Elison⁸, Changwei W Wu⁹, Hongtu Zhu^{2

4

10

11

12}, Jessica R Cohen⁶, Weili Lin^{13

14}; UNC/UMN Baby Connectome Project Consortium

Collaborators

UNC/UMN Baby Connectome Project Consortium:
Joe Piven, John Gilmore, Dinggang Shen, Kamil Ugurbil, Jed Elison, Essa Yacoub, Heather Cody Hazlett, Jason Wolff, Martin Styner, Keith Smith, Pew-Thian Yap, Han Zhang

Affiliations

¹ Biomedical Research Imaging Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
² Department of Radiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
³ Department of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Shanghai Children's Medical Center, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
⁴ Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
⁵ Lampe Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
⁶ Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
⁷ Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
⁸ Institute of Child Development and Department of Pediatrics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
⁹ Graduate Institute of Mind, Brain and Consciousness, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan.
¹⁰ Department of Computer Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
¹¹ Department of Statistics and Operations Research, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
¹² Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
¹³ Biomedical Research Imaging Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA. Weili_lin@med.unc.edu.
¹⁴ Department of Radiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA. Weili_lin@med.unc.edu.

PMID: 40234630
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-025-02160-2

Abstract

Early childhood is crucial for brain functional development. Using advanced neuroimaging methods, characterizing functional connectivity has shed light on the developmental process in infants. However, insights into spatiotemporal functional maturation from birth to early childhood are substantially lacking. In this study, we aggregated 1,091 resting-state functional MRI scans of typically developing children from birth to 6 years of age, harmonized the cohort and imaging-state-related bias, and delineated developmental charts of functional connectivity within and between canonical brain networks. These charts revealed potential neurodevelopmental milestones and elucidated the complex development of brain functional integration, competition and transition processes. We further determined that individual deviations from normative growth charts are significantly associated with infant cognitive abilities. Specifically, connections involving the primary, default, control and attention networks were key predictors. Our findings elucidate early neurodevelopment and suggest that functional connectivity-derived brain charts may provide an effective tool to monitor normative functional development.

Abstract

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