Attention network drives cortical maturation linked to childhood cognition

Across the transition from childhood to adolescence the human brain experiences profound functional changes, shifting from an organizational framework anchored within somatosensory/motor and visual regions into one that is balanced through interactions with later-maturing aspects of association cortex 1–3 . Here, we provide consistent evidence linking this profile of large-scale functional reorganization to the development of attention network connectivity across independent datasets 4,5 . We demonstrate that maturational changes in cortical organization are preferential to the salience/ventral attention network 6–9 with heightened degree centrality and within-network connectivity, while connectivity within these network-linked vertices predicts cognitive ability such as fluid intelligence, perceptual reasoning and verbal ability 10 . Maturational refinement of the attention network closely links to the transition in cortical hierarchy, children with low ventral attention network connectivity exhibit adolescent-like topographical profiles, suggesting attentional systems may be critically important for understanding how brain functions are refined across development. These data highlight a core role for attention networks in supporting age-dependent shifts in cortical organization and cognition across childhood and adolescence, with the pruning in its between-network functional connections reflecting intricate interactions across multiple systems, rather than the segregation of an isolated network. The development of cortical hierarchy in children is driven by the ventral attention network, and the refinement of network connectivity within this system is linked to an accelerated pattern of cortical maturation.