Читать книгу The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Childhood Social Development - Группа авторов - Страница 64

The burgeoning field of cognitive neuroscience, neuroimaging and social‐developmental researchers began to further parse out the networks that governed social development (Redcay & Warnell, 2018; Schurz et al., 2020). Table 3.2 represents a partial list of those networks considered to be important in social‐emotional development that have been identified using DTI, rs‐fcMRI mapping and structural image analysis. Note that many are basic for a particular motor, sensory, language, or general cognitive function, but all relate back to essential requirements for social development. For example, the interplay between the visual processing network, ability to visually perceive and detect facial emotion in another individual, to retain that information and use it to modify and regulate behavior in response to that individual requires multiple network systems simultaneously interacting to make even the simplest of a social gesture between two individuals.

All of the networks shown in Table 3.2 take years to develop. Cortical regions do not necessarily have the same growth curves as does the whole brain as was shown in Figure 3.3, and maturation curves differ for each lobe and ROI as well (Bigler, 2021). This is shown in Figure 3.8 from Somerville. Note in terms of the GM pruning and cortical thickness, that the frontal lobe exhibits the slowest maturation. This also links with neurobehavioral assessments that demonstrate executive control, with social‐emotional functioning and frontal lobe development and their acquisition over childhood and adolescence (Happaney et al., 2004). Furthermore, note that WM stabilization in terms of DTI metrics extends well into the 20s, as shown in Figure 3.8. Accordingly, the neurodevelopmental process is complex as it relates to social brain development, occurs at different rates regionally, all of which means that in the context of social brain development, it extends well into what has been considered early “adulthood.”

This uneven and differential pattern of development mediated by age is also true for subcortical regions of the brain and specific WM tracts, where wide differences are depicted in Figure 3.9 (Huang et al., 2015; Mah et al., 2017; Tamnes et al., 2018). Note from Figure 3.9 the lengthy maturation process occurring with the cingulum bundle and the uncinate fasciculus, two critical tracts associated with emotional regulation and social brain development.

Figure 3.8 Differences in age when development peaks

(Reproduced with permission from Somerville, 2016). Reproduced with permission from Elsevier.

Figure 3.9 Distinct differences in WM maturation depending on the tract being examined, based on DTI

(Reproduced with permission from Lebel et al., 2019). Reproduced with permission from Wiley.