Development of effective connectivity for narrative comprehension in children

Abstract

A large-scale study of narrative comprehension using functional MRI was performed involving children of ages 5-18 years old using a recently published method, multivariate autoregressive modeling, modified for multi subject analyses to investigate effective connectivity and its development with age. Feedback networks were found during a narrative processing task and involved effective connectivity from Broca's area and the medial aspect of the superior frontal gyrus to the posterior aspects of the superior temporal gyrus bilaterally. The effective connectivity from Broca's area to the superior temporal gyrus in the left hemisphere was shown to increase with age. The results demonstrate the feasibility of performing multi subject multivariate autoregressive modeling analyses to investigate effective connectivity in the absence of an a priori model.

Figure 1

Regions active (General Linear Model random-effects analysis, p < 1e-5, corrected) for the task of narrative processing performed by 302 normal children. Images are in radiologic orientation. Slice range: Z = −15 mm to Z = +40 mm.

Figure 2

Feed-forward and feed-back networks found from multivariate autoregressive modeling (MAR) analysis. Solid lines: effective connectivities are significant with p < 0.01; dashed line: connectivity significant with p < 0.05. (R. STG = right posterior temporal cortex; L. STG = left superior temporal cortex; M. SFG = medial aspect of superior frontal gyrus). * = significantly correlated with subject age (R = 0.17; p < 0.05 Bonferroni-corrected).