The Neural Basis of Object Processing in Infancy

描述(申请人提供)：用数字上不同的物体来表示世界的能力是早期认知发展的一个里程碑，并为更复杂的思想和行为奠定了基础。如果不能发展这一能力，婴儿日后出现发育困难的风险很大。最近的研究表明，婴儿使用特征信息对物体进行个性化的能力发生了重要的发展变化。然而，人们对这些变化背后的神经机制知之甚少，这在很大程度上是因为可用于测量婴儿大脑功能的非侵入性技术数量有限。因此，迫切需要找到新的方法来确定物体加工中行为和大脑功能之间的关系。一种这样的方法是近红外光谱(NIRS)，这是一种光学成像技术，使用脑血容量的变化作为神经激活的指标。由于NIRS是安全和非侵入性的，可以在行为任务中使用，并提供有关神经激活的空间和时间信息，因此它是此类婴儿研究的理想选择。在这项申请中提出的研究将使用近红外光谱来识别对象处理任务期间神经激活的变化。这项应用的目的是确定婴儿使用形状和颜色这两种特征信息来个性化物体的能力的神经基础。中心假设是，婴儿使用形状和颜色差异对物体进行个性化的能力将与独特的、明确定义的神经激活模式相关联。这一假说是基于我们实验室收集的行为和神经成像数据而形成的。这项研究的理论基础是，一旦我们确定了支持婴儿基于特征的客体个性化的神经底物，就有可能形成一个关注大脑-行为关系的客体加工的发展模型。这些信息可以帮助指导诊断和干预技术的发展，这些技术可以用于有物体处理困难风险的婴儿，并将为新的研究提供动力，该研究考察了早期经验的差异可以在多大程度上改变正常的行为模式和大脑功能。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The capacity to represent the world in terms of numerically distinct objects is a milestone in early cognitive development and forms the foundation for more complex thought and behavior. Failure to develop this capacity places infants at significant risk for later developmental difficulties. Recent research has revealed important developmental changes in infants' ability to use featural information to individuate objects. However, relatively little is known about the neural mechanisms that underlie these changes, in large part because there are a limited number of non-invasive techniques available to measure brain function in infants. Hence, there is a critical need to identify new methods to specify the relation between behavior and brain function in object processing. One (1) such method is near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), an optical imaging technique that uses changes in cerebral blood volume as an indicator of neural activation. Because NIRS is safe and non-invasive, can be used during behavioral tasks, and provides spatial and temporal information about neural activation, it is ideal for infant research of this kind. The research proposed in this application will use NIRS to identify changes in neural activation during an object processing task. The objective of this application is to identify the neural basis of infants' ability to use 2 kinds of featural information, shape and color, to individuate objects. The central hypothesis is that infants' capacity to individuate objects using shape and color differences will be associated with unique, well-defined patterns of neural activation. This hypothesis has been formulated on the basis of behavioral and neuroimaging data collected in our lab. The rationale for the proposed research is that once we have identified the neural substrates that support featurally-based object individuation in the infant, it will be possible to formulate a developmental model of object processing that focuses on brain-behavior relations. This information can be used to help guide the development of diagnostic and intervention techniques that can be used with infants at risk for object processing difficulties, and will provide the impetus for new research that examines the extent to which normal patterns of behavior and brain function can be altered by differences in early experience.