A Developmental fMRI Study of the Stroop Color-Word Task

By N. Adleman, Vinod Menon, C. Blasey, C. White, I. S. Warsofsky, Gary H. Glover, Allan L. Reiss. NeuroImage, 2002

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We used fMRI to investigate developmental changes in brain activation during a Stroop color-word interference task. A positive correlation was observed between age and Stroop-related activation (n = 30) in the left lateral prefrontal cortex, the left anterior cingulate, and the left parietal and parieto-occipital cortices. No regions showed a negative correlation between activation and age. We further investigated age-related differences by stratifying the sample into three age groups: children (ages 7-11), adolescents (ages 12-16), and young adults (ages 18-22). Young adult subjects (n = 11) displayed significant activation in the inferior and middle frontal gyri bilaterally, the left anterior cingulate, and bilateral inferior and superior parietal lobules. Between-group comparisons revealed that young adults had significantly greater activation than adolescent subjects (n = 11) in the left middle frontal gyrus and that young adults showed significantly greater activation than children (n = 8) in the anterior cingulate and left parietal and parieto-occipital regions, as well as in the left middle frontal gyrus. Compared to children, both adult and adolescent subjects exhibited significantly greater activation in the parietal cortex. Adult and adolescent groups, however, did not differ in activation for this region. Together, these data suggest that Stroop task-related functional development of the parietal lobe occurs by adolescence. In contrast, prefrontal cortex function contributing to the Stroop interference task continues to develop into adulthood. This neuromaturational process may depend on increased ability to recruit focal neural resources with age. Findings from this study, the first developmental fMRI investigation of the Stroop interference task, provide a template with which normal development and neurodevelopmental disorders of prefrontal cortex function can be assessed.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Developmental and Educational Psychology, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7e07b4664526a8ac78d1f8ab243f7d66505d1e45

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Citations in the corpus

Social cognitive development during adolescence. (2006, background): “We know from executive function studies that the ability to suppress impulses develops during adolescence, perhaps in line with PFC maturation (Casey et al., 1997; Rubia et al., 2001; Adleman et al., 2002; Tamm et al., 2002).”
A Social Neuroscience Perspective on Adolescent Risk-Taking. (2008, result): “…functional changes: Between childhood and adolescence, there appears to be an increase in activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (Adleman et al., 2002; Casey, Giedd, & Thomas, 2000; Durston et al., 2002; Luna et al., 2001; Tamm, Menon, & Reiss, 2002), consistent with the…”
Progressive increase of frontostriatal brain activation from childhood to adulthood during event‐related tasks of cognitive control (2006, background): “…brain regions extend previous imaging studies on cognitive control that observed linear age-corre- lations in narrower age windows than this study [Adleman et al., 2002; Rubia et al., 2000; Tamm et al., 2002] and are parallel to other developmental studies that found progressive linear changes…”
Development of the adolescent brain: implications for executive function and social cognition. (2006, methodology): “Using the Stroop colour‐word interference paradigm, which involves inhibition of inappropriate responses, Adleman et al. (2002) observed age-related increases in activity in a left frontalparietal network of areas.”
Who’s messing with my mind? (2008, background): “…that substantial growth, change and finetuning of the neural circuitry underpinning cognitive control occurs between adolescence and adulthood (e.g. Giedd et al. 1999; Spear 2000; Sowell et al. 2001, 2002; Adleman et al. 2002; for overviews see YurgelunTodd 2007; Casey et al. 2008; Steinberg 2008).”
Age differences in sensation seeking and impulsivity as indexed by behavior and self-report: evidence for a dual systems model. (2008, background): “Between childhood and adolescence, there appears to be an increase in focal activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex ( Adleman et al., 2002; Casey, Giedd, & Thomas, 2000; Durston et al., 2002; Luna et al., 2001; Tamm, Menon, & Reiss, 2002).”
Maturation of White Matter is Associated with the Development of Cognitive Functions during Childhood (2004, methodology): “Eighteen slices were acquired from each subject, with an inplane resolution of 1.72 Â 1.72 mm and a slice thickness of 5 mm. Eddy current distortions and head movements were corrected (Andersson & Skare, 2002) before the calculation of diffusion tensors.”
Impulsive and Self-Conscious: Adolescents' Vulnerability to Advertising and Promotion (2005, background): “Such weaknesses include poorer frontal lobe executive function (Adleman et al. 2002), worse visuospatial and delayed verbal memory (Sowell et al. 2001), and slower reaction time (Spear 2000).”
Why do many psychiatric disorders emerge during adolescence? (2008, background): “Similar BOLD increases were observed in these regions during the performance of a variety of tasks that involve some form of response inhibition, including the Stroop task”