Resting-state functional network connectivity underlying conscientiousness in school-aged children

ABSTRACT

Conscientiousness is a personality trait that matures from early childhood to late adolescence, yet little is known about its underlying brain mechanisms during this period. To investigate this, our study examined the resting-state functional network connectivity (rsFNC) of 69 school-aged children (mean age = 10.12 years, range = 9–12) using a whole-brain region-of-interest (ROI) based analysis, based on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The results indicated a positive association between conscientiousness and the rsFNC between the fronto-parietal network (FPN) and two brain networks: the somatosensory motor-hand network (SMHN) and the auditory network (AN). However, conscientiousness was negatively associated with the rsFNC between FPN and two other networks: the salience network (SN); the default mode network (DMN). Moreover, our results suggest that the FPN may play a hub role in the neural performance of children’s conscientiousness. Intrinsic brain networks, particularly those involved in higher-order cognitive functions, impact children’s conscientiousness. Therefore, FPN plays an important role in the development of children’s personality, providing insight into the neural mechanisms underlying children’s personality.

KEYWORDS:

• Conscientiousness
• functional network connectivity
• high-order cognitive function
• children

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/09297049.2023.2221757.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [32271087].