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Body-selective areas in the visual cortex are less active in children than in adults

Ross, P.; de Gelder, B.; Crabbe, F.; Grosbras, M.-H.

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Authors

B. de Gelder

F. Crabbe

M.-H. Grosbras



Abstract

Our ability to read other people’s non-verbal signals gets refined throughout childhood and adolescence. How this is paralleled by brain development has been investigated mainly with regards to face perception, showing a protracted functional development of the face-selective visual cortical areas. In view of the importance of whole-body expressions in interpersonal communication it is important to understand the development of brain areas sensitive to these social signals. Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare brain activity in a group of 24 children (age 6–11) and 26 adults while they passively watched short videos of body or object movements. We observed activity in similar regions in both groups; namely the extra-striate body area (EBA), fusiform body area (FBA), posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), amygdala and premotor regions. Adults showed additional activity in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Within the main body-selective regions (EBA, FBA and pSTS), the strength and spatial extent of fMRI signal change was larger in adults than in children. Multivariate Bayesian (MVB) analysis showed that the spatial pattern of neural representation within those regions did not change over age. Our results indicate, for the first time, that body perception, like face perception, is still maturing through the second decade of life.

Citation

Ross, P., de Gelder, B., Crabbe, F., & Grosbras, M. (2014). Body-selective areas in the visual cortex are less active in children than in adults. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, Article 941. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00941

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Nov 4, 2014
Online Publication Date Nov 21, 2014
Publication Date Nov 21, 2014
Deposit Date Jan 12, 2016
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
Publisher Frontiers Media
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 8
Article Number 941
DOI https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00941

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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
© 2014 Ross, de Gelder, Crabbe and Grosbras. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution and reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.




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