The use of functional and effective connectivity techniques to understand the developing brain

• Functional and effective connectivity have revealed the brain as a complex network.
• Developmental research is often limited in capturing the process of change.
• Dynamic systems theory offers a framework for developmental connectivity research.

ABSTRACTDevelopmental neuroscience, the study of the processes that shape and reshape the maturing brain, is a growing field still in its nascent stages. The developmental application of functional and effective connectivity techniques, which are tools that measure the interactions between elements of the brain, has revealed insight to the developing brain as a complex system. However, this insight is granted in discrete windows of consecutive time. The current review uses dynamic systems theory as a conceptual framework to understand how functional and effective connectivity tools may be used in conjunction to capture the dynamic process of change that occurs with development.