We investigated the hypothesis that the development of functional connectivity during childhood through adolescence conforms to the cortical hierarchy defined by the sensorimotor-assocation axis. We tested this pre-registered hypothesis in four large-scale, independent datasets (total n = 3,355; ages 5-23 years). In each dataset, the development of functional connectivity systematically varied along the S-A axis. These robust and generalizable results establish that the sensorimotor-association axis of cortical organization encodes the dominant pattern of functional connectivity development.

If you're a neuroscientist who wants to use DSI to look at some cool microstructural details but can't afford to add the extra 20 minutes of scan time to your protocol, compressed sensing might be your new best friend!

We show that CS-DSI schemes can generate white matter derivatives comparable to those generated by a full DSI scheme, allowing up to a 60% decrease in scan time with minimal loss in accuracy or reliability! This could allow both researchers and even clinicians to harness the advantages of DSI sequences that were previously impractical to deploy.

Despite the importance of the environment in shaping individual differences in cognitive neurodevelopment, it has been challenging to quantify the many interconnected features of a child's environment ('exposome'). Here, we leverage a large-scale dataset to investigate to demonstrate that the exposome is associated with individual differences in functional brain network organization and cognition. We find that models trained on a single variable capturing a child′s exposome can more accurately and parsimoniously predict future cognitive performance than models trained on a wealth of personalized neuroimaging data. This highlights the importance of childhood environments in shaping neurocognitive development.