Development of BOLD response to visual motion in infants M C Morrone1, L Biagi2, S A Crespi3, M Tosetti4 |
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1University of Pisa, Italy |
| Development of vision in infants has been studied with dense ERPs, demonstrating differential maturation of cortical areas (Braddick et al, 2003), but there has been no direct measurements of the maturation of individual cortical areas in new-borns by imaging methods. We measure BOLD responses to visual stimuli in 10 cooperative infants of 7 weeks old and studied the development of the various cortical responses to flow versus random motion. The results show that at 7 weeks of age the major circuits mediating the response to flow motion are already operative, with stronger response to coherent flow spiral motion than to random speed-matched motion (Morrone et al 2000) in parietal-occipital area (presumed MT+), pre-cuneous, posterior parietal (V6) areas and an area corresponding anatomical to PIVC, which in adults receives visual-vestibular input (Cardin & Smith et al 2010). As in adults, V1 does not respond preferentially to coherent motion. Resting-state connectivity maps collected in 5 infants indicate weak connectivity between V1 and the parietal-occipital regions selective for flow motion, suggesting the existence of an alternative input that bypasses V1. In conclusion, the results revealed an unexpected maturation of the motion analysis circuit of the associative area, probably not mediated by striate cortex. |
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