Functional connectivity in the social brain across childhood and adolescence

Previous research has characterized a collection of neural regions which support social-cognitive processes. While this ‘social brain’ is often described as a cohesive unit, it has been largely assessed with univariate methodologies, which cannot account for functional relationships ‘between’ brain regions, and therefore cannot test the idea of the social brain as a network. In the present work, we utilized a multi-method approach to empirically assess the functional architecture of the social brain. Fifty participants (ages 8–16) completed a social evaluation task during an functional imaging scan. Results from three unique functional connectivity methodologies demonstrated that social brain regions show strong functional relationships, while also interfacing with non-social regions, suggesting that future work should consider network relationships between social brain regions in addition to traditional univariate approaches. We probed, but did not find age-related differences in social brain network organization, demonstrating that this functional architecture is in place by late childhood.