Longitudinal development of category representations in high-level visual cortex during childhood

Journal of Vision, vol. 25, pp. 1662

Abstract

Human ventral temporal cortex (VTC) contains category-selective regions that respond preferentially to ecologically relevant categories such as faces, bodies, and words. How do these regions develop during childhood? Here, I will present our longitudinal work examining this development using both univariate and multivariate measures. In a first project, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure longitudinal development of category-selectivity in school-age children. We discovered that, from childhood to the teens, face- and word-selective regions in VTC expand, but limb-selective regions shrink and lose their preference for limbs. Critically, as a child develops, increases in word-selectivity are linked to decreases in limb selectivity, revealing that limb-selectivity in VTC is repurposed into word-selectivity. These results provide evidence for cortical recycling during childhood development. In a second project, we addressed the question how distributed category representations develop during childhood and if this development relates to behavioral changes in recognition. We longitudinally measured the development of distributed responses across VTC 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 VTC, respectively, predicted children’s word and face recognition performance. These results suggest that the development of distributed representations in VTC has behavioral ramifications and advance our understanding of prolonged cortical development during childhood.

Authors 7

1. Marisa Nordt Aachen

   RWTH Aachen University · Stanford University

   Affiliation as printed

   RWTH Aachen

   Stanford University

2. Jesse Gomez

   Princeton University

   Affiliation as printed

   Princeton University

3. Vaidehi S. Natu

   Stanford University

   Affiliation as printed

   Stanford University

4. Alex A. Rezai

   Stanford University

   Affiliation as printed

   Stanford University

5. Dawn Finzi

   Stanford University

   Affiliation as printed

   Stanford University

6. Holly Kular

   Stanford University

   Affiliation as printed

   Stanford University

7. Kalanit Grill‐Spector

   Stanford University

   Affiliation as printed

   Stanford University