Journal Article

Resting‐state functional connectivity of the human hippocampus in periadolescent children: Associations with age and memory performance

Warren, David E., Wang, Yu‐Ping, Stephen, Julia M., Frenzel, Michaela R., Eastman, Jacob A., Christopher‐Hayes, Nicholas J., Wilson, Tony W., Rangel, Anthony J., Calhoun, Vince D.

2021

Overview

The hippocampus is necessary for declarative (relational) memory, and the ability to form hippocampal‐dependent memories develops through late adolescence. This developmental trajectory of hippocampal‐dependent memory could reflect maturation of intrinsic functional brain networks, but resting‐state functional connectivity (rs‐FC) of the human hippocampus is not well‐characterized for periadolescent children. Measuring hippocampal rs‐FC in periadolescence would thus fill a gap, and testing covariance of hippocampal rs‐FC with age and memory could inform theories of cognitive development. Here, we studied hippocampal rs‐FC in a cross‐sectional sample of healthy children (N = 96; 59 F; age 9–15 years) using a seed‐based approach, and linked these data with NIH Toolbox measures, the Picture‐Sequence Memory Test (PSMT) and the List Sorting Working Memory Test (LSWMT). The PSMT was expected to rely more on hippocampal‐dependent memory than the LSWMT. We observed hippocampal rs‐FC with an extensive brain network including temporal, parietal, and frontal regions. This pattern was consistent with prior work measuring hippocampal rs‐FC in younger and older samples. We also observed novel, regionally specific variation in hippocampal rs‐FC with age and hippocampal‐dependent memory but not working memory. Evidence consistent with these findings was observed in a second, validation dataset of similar‐age healthy children drawn from the Philadelphia Neurodevelopment Cohort. Further, a cross‐dataset analysis suggested generalizable properties of hippocampal rs‐FC and covariance with age and memory. Our findings connect prior work by describing hippocampal rs‐FC and covariance with age and memory in typically developing periadolescent children, and our observations suggest a developmental trajectory for brain networks that support hippocampal‐dependent memory. The hippocampus is necessary for normal declarative (relational) memory, and the ability to form hippocampal‐dependent memories continues to develop through late adolescence. We studied the intrinsic (resting) functional connectivity of the hippocampus in two cross‐sectional samples (discovery and validation) of healthy periadolescent using a seed‐based approach, and measured the covariance of hippocampal functional connectivity with age and memory performance. In addition to predicted patterns of functional connectivity for hippocampus, we also observed novel, region‐specific variation in hippocampal functional connectivity with age and hippocampal‐dependent memory.

• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc
• Subject: adolescence / Adolescent / Adolescent Development - physiology / Age / Age Factors / Alzheimer's disease / Analysis / Biomarkers / Brain / Cerebral Cortex - diagnostic imaging / Cerebral Cortex - physiology / Child / Child development / Child Development - physiology / Children / Children's furniture / Cognitive ability / Connectome / Covariance / Cross-Sectional Studies / Datasets / development / Female / Hippocampus / Hippocampus - diagnostic imaging / Hippocampus - physiology / Humans / Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Male / Memory / Memory - physiology / Nerve Net - diagnostic imaging / Nerve Net - physiology / Neural networks / resting‐state functional connectivity / Short term memory / Young adults