title: Joint Attention and Brain Functional Connectivity in Infants and Toddlers.
abstract: Initiating joint attention (IJA), the behavioral instigation of coordinated focus of 2 people on an object, emerges over the first 2 years of life and supports social-communicative functioning related to the healthy development of aspects of language, empathy, and theory of mind. Deficits in IJA provide strong early indicators for autism spectrum disorder, and therapies targeting joint attention have shown tremendous promise. However, the brain systems underlying IJA in early childhood are poorly understood, due in part to significant methodological challenges in imaging localized brain function that supports social behaviors during the first 2 years of life. Herein, we show that the functional organization of the brain is intimately related to the emergence of IJA using functional connectivity magnetic resonance imaging and dimensional behavioral assessments in a large semilongitudinal cohort of infants and toddlers. In particular, though functional connections spanning the brain are involved in IJA, the strongest brain-behavior associations cluster within connections between a small subset of functional brain networks; namely between the visual network and dorsal attention network and between the visual network and posterior cingulate aspects of the default mode network. These observations mark the earliest known description of how functional brain systems underlie a burgeoning fundamental social behavior, may help improve the design of targeted therapies for neurodevelopmental disorders, and, more generally, elucidate physiological mechanisms essential to healthy social behavior development.
authors.affiliation: Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO 63110, USA.
authors.forename: Adam T
authors.initials: AT
authors.lastname: Eggebrecht
authors.affiliation: Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.
authors.forename: Jed T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Elison
authors.affiliation: Department of Behavioral Neuroscience, Oregon Health & Sciences, Portland, OR 97239, USA.
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Feczko
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO 63110, USA.
authors.forename: Alexandre
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Todorov
authors.affiliation: Department of Educational Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.
authors.forename: Jason J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Wolff
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO 63110, USA.
authors.forename: Sridhar
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kandala
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO 63110, USA.
authors.forename: Chloe M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Adams
authors.affiliation: Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO 63110, USA.
authors.forename: Abraham Z
authors.initials: AZ
authors.lastname: Snyder
authors.affiliation: McConnell Brain Imaging Center, Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 2B4, Canada.
authors.forename: John D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Lewis
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
authors.forename: Annette M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Estes
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Alberta, 1E1 Walter Mackenzie Health Sciences Centre (WMC), Edmonton, AB T6G 2B7, Canada.
authors.forename: Lonnie
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zwaigenbaum
authors.affiliation: Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO 63110, USA.|Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO 63110, USA.
authors.forename: Kelly N
authors.initials: KN
authors.lastname: Botteron
authors.affiliation: Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO 63110, USA.
authors.forename: Robert C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: McKinstry
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO 63110, USA.
authors.forename: John N
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Constantino
authors.affiliation: McConnell Brain Imaging Center, Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 2B4, Canada.
authors.forename: Alan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Evans
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27514, USA.
authors.forename: Heather C
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Hazlett
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dager
authors.affiliation: The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.|Department of Psychology, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA.
authors.forename: Sarah J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Paterson
authors.affiliation: The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
authors.forename: Robert T
authors.initials: RT
authors.lastname: Schultz
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27514, USA.
authors.forename: Martin A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Styner
authors.affiliation: Tandon School of Engineering, New York University, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA.
authors.forename: Guido
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Gerig
authors.affiliation: McConnell Brain Imaging Center, Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 2B4, Canada.
authors.forename: Samir
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Das
authors.affiliation: McConnell Brain Imaging Center, Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 2B4, Canada.
authors.forename: Penelope
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kostopoulos
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO 63110,USA.
authors.forename: Bradley L
authors.initials: BL
authors.lastname: Schlaggar
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO 63110,USA.
authors.forename: Steven E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Petersen
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27514, USA.
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Piven
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO 63110, USA.
authors.forename: John R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Pruett
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000254:growth & development / Q000502:physiology; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D002666:Psychology, Child
keywords: development; enrichment; fMRI; initiating joint attention; network