%0 Journal Article %J Human Brain Mapping %D 2022 %T Using child‐friendly movie stimuli to study the development of face, place, and object regions from age 3 to 12 years %A Kamps, Frederik S. %A Richardson, Hilary %A N. Apurva Ratan Murty %A Nancy Kanwisher %A Rebecca Saxe %X

Scanning young children while they watch short, engaging, commercially-produced movies has emerged as a promising approach for increasing data retention and quality. Movie stimuli also evoke a richer variety of cognitive processes than traditional experiments, allowing the study of multiple aspects of brain development simultaneously. However, because these stimuli are uncontrolled, it is unclear how effectively distinct profiles of brain activity can be distinguished from the resulting data. Here we develop an approach for identifying multiple distinct subject-specific Regions of Interest (ssROIs) using fMRI data collected during movie-viewing. We focused on the test case of higher-level visual regions selective for faces, scenes, and objects. Adults (N = 13) were scanned while viewing a 5.6-min child-friendly movie, as well as a traditional localizer experiment with blocks of faces, scenes, and objects. We found that just 2.7 min of movie data could identify subject-specific face, scene, and object regions. While successful, movie-defined ssROIS still showed weaker domain selectivity than traditional ssROIs. Having validated our approach in adults, we then used the same methods on movie data collected from 3 to 12-year-old children (N = 122). Movie response timecourses in 3-year-old children's face, scene, and object regions were already significantly and specifically predicted by timecourses from the corresponding regions in adults. We also found evidence of continued developmental change, particularly in the face-selective posterior superior temporal sulcus. Taken together, our results reveal both early maturity and functional change in face, scene, and object regions, and more broadly highlight the promise of short, child-friendly movies for developmental cognitive neuroscience.

%B Human Brain Mapping %8 03/2022 %G eng %U https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hbm.25815 %! Human Brain Mapping %R 10.1002/hbm.25815 %0 Journal Article %J Cortex %D 2020 %T Response patterns in the developing social brain are organized by social and emotion features and disrupted in children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder %A Richardson, Hilary %A Hyowon Gweon %A Dodell-Feder, David %A Malloy, Caitlin %A Pelton, Hannah %A Keil, Boris %A Nancy Kanwisher %A Rebecca Saxe %B Cortex %V 125 %P 12 - 29 %8 Jan-04-2020 %G eng %U https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31958654 %! Cortex %R 10.1016/j.cortex.2019.11.021 %0 Journal Article %J Nature Communications %D 2017 %T Organization of high-level visual cortex in human infants %A Ben Deen %A Richardson, Hilary %A Dilks, Daniel D. %A Takahashi, Atsushi %A Keil, Boris %A Lawrence Wald %A Nancy Kanwisher %A Rebecca Saxe %X

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.

%B Nature Communications %8 01/2017 %G eng %U http://www.nature.com/doifinder/10.1038/ncomms13995 %! Nat Comms %R 10.1038/ncomms13995