Longitudinal development of category representations in ventral temporal cortex predicts word and face recognition

Nature Communications, vol. 14, pp. 8010

Abstract

Regions in ventral temporal cortex that are involved in visual recognition of categories like words and faces undergo differential development during childhood. However, categories are also represented in distributed responses across high-level visual cortex. How distributed category representations develop and if this development relates to behavioral changes in recognition remains largely unknown. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to longitudinally measure the development of distributed responses across ventral temporal cortex to 10 categories in school-age children over several years. Our results reveal both strengthening and weakening of category representations with age, which was mainly driven by changes across category-selective voxels. Representations became particularly more distinct for words in the left hemisphere and for faces bilaterally. Critically, distinctiveness for words and faces across category-selective voxels in left and right lateral ventral temporal cortex, respectively, predicted individual children's word and face recognition performance. These results suggest that the development of distributed representations in ventral temporal cortex has behavioral ramifications and advance our understanding of prolonged cortical development during childhood.

Authors 7

1. Marisa Nordt corresponding Aachen Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Medical Faculty JARA-Brain Institute II

   Jülich Aachen Research Alliance · RWTH Aachen University · Stanford University

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen, Aachen, Germany. mnordt@ukaachen.de

   Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA. mnordt@ukaachen.de

   JARA-Brain Institute II, Molecular Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, RWTH Aachen & Research Centre Juelich, Juelich, Germany. mnordt@ukaachen.de

   Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

2. Jesse Gomez

   Princeton University

   Affiliation as printed

   Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

3. Vaidehi S. Natu

   Stanford University

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

4. Alex A. Rezai

   Stanford University

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

5. Dawn Finzi

   Stanford University

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Computer Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

   Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

6. Holly Kular

   Stanford University

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

7. Kalanit Grill‐Spector

   Stanford University

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

   Neurosciences Program, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

   Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA