Data from: The expression of established cognitive brain states stabilizes with working memory development

We present results from a longitudinal study conducted over 10 years in a
sample of 126 8-33 year olds demonstrating that adolescent development of
working memory is supported by decreased variability in the amplitude of
expression of whole brain states of task-related activity. fMRI analyses
reveal that putative gain signals affecting maintenance and retrieval
aspects of working memory processing stabilize during adolescence, while
those affecting sensorimotor processes do not. We show that trial-to-trial
variability in the reaction time and accuracy of eye-movements during a
memory guided saccade task are related to fluctuations in the amplitude of
expression of task-related brain states, or brain state variability, and
also provide evidence that individual developmental trajectories of
reaction time variability are related to individual trajectories of brain
state variability. These observations demonstrate that underlying the
maturation of cognition through adolescence is the stabilization of
widespread gain signals affecting already available cognitive processes.