Cerebral Cortex, February 2018;28: 726–737 doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhx307 Advance Access Publication Date: 17 November 2017 Original Article ORIGINAL ARTICLE The Hierarchical Organization of the Default, Dorsal Attention and Salience Networks in Adolescents and Young Adults Yuan Zhou1,2,3,4, Karl J. Friston4, Peter Zeidman4, Jie Chen3,5, Shu Li1,2,3 and Adeel Razi4,6,7 1CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Beijing 100101, China, 2Magnetic Resonance Imaging Research Center, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China, 3Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China, 4The Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, UK, 5CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Beijing 100101, China, 6Monash Biomedical Imaging and Monash Institute of Cognitive & Clinical Neurosciences, Monash University, Clayton 3800, Australia and 7Department of Electronic Engineering, NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi 75270, Pakistan Address correspondence to Yuan Zhou, CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences No. 16 Lincui Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, PR China. Email:
[email protected]; Adeel Razi, The Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, Instituteof Neurology, UCL Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, UK. Email:
[email protected]. Abstract An important characteristic of spontaneous brain activity is the anticorrelation between the core default network (cDN) and the dorsal attention network (DAN) and the salience network (SN). This anticorrelation may constitute a key aspect of functional anatomy and is implicated in several brain disorders. We used dynamic causal modeling to assess the hypothesis that a causal hierarchy underlies this anticorrelation structure, using resting-state fMRI of healthy adolescent and young adults (N = 404).