**Author details**

When investigating the development of ToM, children develop an understanding of desires, goals, and intentions at around 18 months firstly, and then the understanding of many mental states such as wanting, knowing, pretending, or believing is available in implicit form to 2-year-olds. Typical tests of mentalizing develop at about 4 years old in children [129]. At the age of 6 years, all typically developing children understand the tasks, involving more

A functional MRI study investigated the development of mentalizing by the task and found that children (between 9 and 14 years old) engaged frontal regions includes medial PFC and left inferior frontal gyrus more than adults did in this task [131]. In another study, adolescent (12–18 years) and adults participants (22–37 years) were scanned with functional MRI and the results showed that adolescents activated part of the medial PFC more than adults did, and adults activated part of the right superior temporal sulcus more than adolescents did. These results suggest that the neural strategy for mentalizing changes between adolescence and adulthood. Although the same neural network is active, the relative roles of the different areas change, with activity moving from anterior (medial prefrontal) regions to posterior

In this chapter, we have attempted to link structural and functional findings of developmental studies to PFC. Our knowledge and understanding of the neural mechanisms, a growing body of evidence, point to the PFC as a central regulator. The review of the developmental literature indicates that, in the child, the cognitive and emotional functions of the prefrontal cortex develop in apparent synchrony with its structural maturation. The long-term development of executive functions is likely to be aligned with neurophysiological changes, particu-

All of cognitive functions seem to reach a relative plateau of maturity at about the age of 12 years. For example, development of attention reach maturity at about age 12, Working memory and planning seem to develop also at the same pace and toward the same plateau (about 12 years). Temporal integration development depends on both working memory and planning and it develops at the same time with the others. However, higher cognitive functions such as language and intelligence continue to develop into the third decade of life. In summary, these functions develop gradually, between 5 and 10 years of age, to reach completion

In the future, longitudinal studies will be required to verify our understanding of cognitive development. With the structural and functional neuroimaging studies, we are now in the position to concurrently track the development of neural systems and cognitive functioning,

It is known that abnormalities of PFC is associated with many of psychiatric disorders such as attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorder,

larly synaptogenesis and myelination in the prefrontal cortex.

greatly enhancing our understanding of brain-behavior relationships.

complex scenarios [130].

12 Prefrontal Cortex

(temporal) regions with age [132].

**4. Conclusion**

at about age 12.

Merve Cikili Uytun

Address all correspondence to: mervecikili@yahoo.com

Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Kayseri Training and Research Hospital, Kayseri, Turkey
