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The Human Connectome Projects in Development (HCP-D) and Aging (HCP-A) are two large-scale brain imaging studies that will extend the recently completed HCP Young-Adult (HCP-YA) project to nearly the full lifespan, collecting structural, resting-state fMRI, task-fMRI, diffusion, and perfusion MRI in participants from 5 to 100+ years of age. HCP-D is enrolling 1300+ healthy children, adolescents, and young adults (ages 5-21), and HCP-A is enrolling 1200+ healthy adults (ages 36-100+), with each study collecting longitudinal data in a subset of individuals at particular age ranges. The imaging protocols of the HCP-D and HCP-A studies are very similar, differing primarily in the selection of different task-fMRI paradigms. We strove to harmonize the imaging protocol to the greatest extent feasible with the completed HCP-YA (1200+ participants, aged 22-35), but some imaging-related changes were motivated or necessitated by hardware changes, the need to reduce the total amount of scanning per participant, and/or the additional challenges of working with young and elderly populations. Here, we provide an overview of the common HCP-D/A imaging protocol including data and rationales for protocol decisions and changes relative to HCP-YA. The result will be a large, rich, multi-modal, and freely available set of consistently acquired data for use by the scientific community to investigate and define normative developmental and aging related changes in the healthy human brain.

Recent technological and analytical progress in brain imaging has enabled the examination of brain organization and connectivity at unprecedented levels of detail. The Human Connectome Project in Development (HCP-D) is exploiting these tools to chart developmental changes in brain connectivity. When complete, the HCP-D will comprise approximately ∼1750 open access datasets from 1300 + healthy human participants, ages 5-21 years, acquired at four sites across the USA. The participants are from diverse geographical, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. While most participants are tested once, others take part in a three-wave longitudinal component focused on the pubertal period (ages 9-17 years). Brain imaging sessions are acquired on a 3 T Siemens Prisma platform and include structural, functional (resting state and task-based), diffusion, and perfusion imaging, physiological monitoring, and a battery of cognitive tasks and self-reports. For minors, parents additionally complete a battery of instruments to characterize cognitive and emotional development, and environmental variables relevant to development. Participants provide biological samples of blood, saliva, and hair, enabling assays of pubertal hormones, health markers, and banked DNA samples. This paper outlines the overarching aims of the project, the approach taken to acquire maximally informative data while minimizing participant burden, preliminary analyses, and discussion of the intended uses and limitations of the dataset.

Understanding the underpinnings of social responsiveness and theory of mind (ToM) will enhance our knowledge of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We hypothesize that higher-order relational reasoning (higher-order RR: reasoning necessitating integration of relationships among multiple variables) is necessary but not sufficient for ToM, and that social responsiveness varies independently of higher-order RR. A pilot experiment tested these hypotheses in n = 17 children, 3-14, with and without ASD. No child failing 2nd-order RR passed a false belief ToM test. Contrary to prediction, Social Responsiveness Scale scores did correlate with 2nd-order RR performance, likely due to sample characteristics. It is feasible to translate this comparative cognition-inspired line of inquiry for full-scale studies of ToM, higher-order RR, and social responsiveness in ASD.

Depression associated with traumatic brain injury (TBI) is believed to be clinically distinct from primary major depressive disorder (MDD) and may be less responsive to conventional treatments. Brain connectivity differences between the dorsal attention network (DAN), default mode network (DMN), and subgenual cingulate have been implicated in TBI and MDD. To characterize these distinctions, we applied precision functional mapping of brain network connectivity to resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data from five published patient cohorts, four discovery cohorts (n = 93), and one replication cohort (n = 180). We identified a distinct brain connectivity profile in TBI-associated depression that was independent of TBI, MDD, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression severity, and cohort. TBI-associated depression was independently associated with decreased DAN–subgenual cingulate connectivity, increased DAN-DMN connectivity, and the combined effect of both. This effect was stronger when using precision functional mapping relative to group-level network maps. Our results support the possibility of a physiologically distinct "TBI affective syndrome," which may benefit from individualized neuromodulation approaches to target its distinct neural circuitry. Editor's summary: Depression associated with traumatic brain injury (TBI) is thought to be distinct from major depression and to be less amenable to treatment. Siddiqi and colleagues now use precision fMRI brain mapping to elucidate a distinct brain connectivity pattern in patients with TBI-associated depression. This connectivity pattern was distinct from connectivity patterns observed in patients with depression alone or TBI alone. This suggested that TBI-associated depression could be a distinct clinical entity for which the authors propose the name "TBI affective syndrome." —Orla Smith [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the underpinnings of social responsiveness and theory of mind (ToM) will enhance our knowledge of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We hypothesize that higher-order relational reasoning (higher-order RR: reasoning necessitating integration of relationships among multiple variables) is necessary but not sufficient for ToM, and that social responsiveness varies independently of higher-order RR. A pilot experiment tested these hypotheses in n = 17 children, 3-14, with and without ASD. No child failing 2nd-order RR passed a false belief ToM test. Contrary to prediction, Social Responsiveness Scale scores did correlate with 2nd-order RR performance, likely due to sample characteristics. It is feasible to translate this comparative cognition-inspired line of inquiry for full-scale studies of ToM, higher-order RR, and social responsiveness in ASD., Author(s): John R. Pruett[sup.1] , Sridhar Kandala[sup.1] , Steven E. Petersen[sup.2] [sup.3] , Daniel J. Povinelli[sup.4] Author Affiliations: (1) Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, Campus Box 8134, [...]