Organization of high-level visual cortex in human infants

Citations Over TimeTop 1% of 2017 papers

Abstract

How much of the structure of the human mind and brain is already specified at birth, and how much arises from experience? In this article, we consider the test case of extrastriate visual cortex, where a highly systematic functional organization is present in virtually every normal adult, including regions preferring behaviourally significant stimulus categories, such as faces, bodies, and scenes. Novel methods were developed to scan awake infants with fMRI, while they viewed multiple categories of visual stimuli. Here we report that the visual cortex of 4-6-month-old infants contains regions that respond preferentially to abstract categories (faces and scenes), with a spatial organization similar to adults. However, precise response profiles and patterns of activity across multiple visual categories differ between infants and adults. These results demonstrate that the large-scale organization of category preferences in visual cortex is adult-like within a few months after birth, but is subsequently refined through development.

Related Papers

• → The Physiology of Stereopsis(2001)427 cited
• → Retinotopic organization of visual cortex in human infants(2021)74 cited
• → The evolution of visual cortex: where is V2?(1999)141 cited
• → Interindividual and interspecies variations of the extrastriate visual cortex(2003)27 cited
• → Organization of the visual afferents into the LGd and the pulvinar of the tree shrewTupaia glis(1975)12 cited