Cortical maturation from childhood to adolescence is reflected in resting state EEG signal complexity

Endogenous cortical fluctuations captured by electroencephalograms (EEGs) reflect activity in large-scale brain networks that exhibit dynamic patterns over multiple time scales. Developmental changes in the coordination and integration of brain function leads to greater complexity in population level neural dynamics. In this study we examined multiscale entropy, a measure of signal complexity, in resting-state EEGs in a large (N = 405) cross-sectional sample of children and adolescents (9–16 years). Our findings showed consistent age-dependent increases in EEG complexity that are distributed across multiple temporal scales and spatial regions. Developmental changes were most robust as the age gap between groups increased, particularly between late childhood and adolescence, and were most prominent over fronto-central scalp regions. These results suggest that the transition from late childhood to adolescence is characterized by age-dependent changes in the underlying complexity of endogenous brain networks.