The contributions of resting state and task-based functional connectivity studies to our understanding of adolescent brain network maturation

- Resting state and task-based functional connectivity studies have uniquely contributed to understanding adolescent network maturation.
- During adolescence, connectivity shifts its topology, its regional strength, and reconfigures its hierarchical, modular organization.
- Task-based connectivity studies find age-related differences depending on what brain region is examined.
- Both methodological approaches must converge in order to produce a connectome-informed theory of neurodevelopment to guide future research.

This review summarizes functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research done over the past decade that examined changes in the function and organization of brain networks across human adolescence. Its over-arching goal is to highlight how both resting state functional connectivity (rs-fcMRI) and task-based functional connectivity (t-fcMRI) have jointly contributed - albeit in different ways - to our understanding of the scope and types of network organization changes that occur from puberty until young adulthood. These two approaches generally have tested different types of hypotheses using different analysis techniques. This has hampered the convergence of findings. Although much has been learned about system-wide changes to adolescents' neural network organization, if both rs-fcMRI and t-fcMRI approaches draw upon each other's methodology and ask broader questions, it will produce a more detailed connectome-informed theory of adolescent neurodevelopment to guide physiological, clinical, and other lines of research.