Protracted Maturation of Proactive and Reactive Systems Predicts Cognitive Stability and Psychopathology : A longitudinal multi-cohort study

作者：Zhiyao Gao, Li Zheng, Tobias Banaschewski, Gareth J. Barker, Arun L.W. Bokde, Rüdiger Brühl, Sylvane Desrivieres, Penny Gowland, Antoine Grigis, Andreas Heinz, Frauke Nees, Dimitri Papadopoulos Orfanos, Luise Poustka, Michael N. Smolka, Sarah Hohmann, Nathalie Holz, Nilakshi Vaidya, Henrik Walter, Robert Whelan, Paul Wirsching, Gunter Schumann, Hugh Garavan, Vinod Menon, Weidong Cai · 发表于：bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 年份：2026 · DOI：10.64898/2026.07.07.736457 · 研究领域：Functional Brain Connectivity Studies、Mental Health Research Topics、Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies

Inhibitory control matures progressively from childhood to early adulthood, yet the neural mechanisms driving this development and their relevance to psychiatric risk remain poorly understood. Guided by the Dual Cognitive Control model, we leveraged longitudinal fMRI from two independent cohorts in the US (ABCD, ages 9-12) and Europe (IMAGEN, ages 14-22) to map the spatiotemporal dynamics of reactive and proactive control using novel single-trial modeling and representational similarity analysis. We found both reactive and proactive stopping networks stabilize after mid-adolescence, tracking the developmental patterns of inhibitory control and behavioral stability. By decoding trial-by-trial fluctuations along a speedcaution continuum, we demonstrate that brain-behavior coupling to a proactive "Safe state" tightens progressively with age. Furthermore, network-level representational coherence of this Safe state emerged as a scanner-invariant, trait-like biomarker that robustly predicted inhibitory control, behavioral stability, and transdiagnostic psychopathology across multiple developmental windows, providing a validated neural phenotype for precision psychiatry.