Connectome and graph analysis of the developing brain

Abstract The human brain undergoes rapid growth in both structure and function from infancy through early childhood, which significantly influences cognitive and behavioral development in later life. A newly emerging developmental connectomics framework together with advanced neuroimaging and neurophysiological techniques provides unprecedented opportunities to delineate how the human brain develops, from a circuitry or network perspective. This chapter aims to comprehensively review recent neuroimaging and neurophysiological studies investigating the brain connectome development. We provide a detailed delineation of the early changes in the baby brains within a graph-theoretical modeling framework, which paves the way for a better understanding of how brain networks develop from infancy to early childhood in both healthy and pathological populations as well as how it shapes the development of important cognitive and behavioral skills in later life.