Fig. 1.

Developmental changes in cortical response patterns in the core face network in children aged 7–11 years and adults. While the overall network configuration was confirmed for all three age groups, a continuous increase in functional response was observed in the two child groups, along with changing patterns of effective connectivity in the network. Most notably, the two child groups did not exhibit any task-dependent changes in network connectivity, a findings which has been attributed to lower levels of processing proficiency. (A) Percent signal change in brain activation in three core face network regions as a function of age and task (Identity task = red; Expression task = blue, Gaze task = green). (B) Dynamic causal modelling analysis of the developmental changes in the core face network in three age groups. Solid arrows indicate significant changes in effective connectivity between two network regions, dotted arrows indicate nonsignificant effects. Black arrows indicate the intrinsic connection between the areas of interest. Colored arrows indicate modulatory effects of each task on the connection between the areas. Abbreviations: IOG = inferior occipital gyrus; FG = fusiform gyrus; STS = superior temporal sulcus. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of the article.)

Adapted with permission from Cohen Kadosh et al. (2010).