Development of Category-Selective Domains in Inferotemporal Cortex

描述(申请人提供)：本研究的目的是研究幼年猕猴额叶皮质类别选择域的正常发育。在成年人类和猴子中，颞叶的离散区域专门用于处理特定的对象类别，如脸、文本、身体或地点。目前尚不清楚这种专门化是与生俱来的，还是由于丰富的早期经验而产生的，也不知道拥有这样的专门化领域的功能意义是什么。为了找出这些特征区域是与生俱来的，还是随着时间的推移而发展起来的，将使用功能磁共振对幼猴进行扫描，从出生开始，然后在发育过程中重复扫描。我们的实验室已经开发出扫描警觉的幼猴的技术，这种扫描完全是非侵入性的，对猴子没有伤害。了解像人脸识别这样重要的东西在多大程度上是与生俱来的，以及电路的哪些方面需要经验才能发展起来，这将是至关重要的。此外，通过定义下颞叶皮质特定类别区域功能分离的正常发育阶段，我们将看到特定物体识别技能的获得是否与特定物体识别技能相关 解剖学发展阶段，可能说明了拥有专门领域的功能后果。此外，我们还将研究类别选择性和视网膜复制之间的关系。我们的工作假设是，信息技术中的重复性组织优先于类别选择性，并偏向于对特定物体的加工(例如，信息技术中心凹表征中的面孔和信息技术外围表征中的位置)。我们建议这个初始的 视网膜性原组织最终让位于空间不变的、非视网膜性类别选择性的组织。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal of the proposed research is to study the normal development of category selective domains in inferotemporal cortex in infant macaques. In adult humans and monkeys, discrete regions of the temporal lobe are specialized for processing particular object categories, such as faces, text, bodies, or places. It is unknown whether this specialization is innate or arises as a consequence of extensive early experience, and it is not known what the functional significance is of having such specialized domains. To find out whether these characteristic domains are innate or develop over time, infant monkeys will be scanned, starting at birth, then repeatedly during development, using functional MRI. Our laboratory has developed techniques for scanning alert infant monkeys that are entirely non-invasive, and not harmful to the monkeys. It will be of fundamental importance to know to what degree something as important as face recognition is innate and what aspects of the circuitry require experience for their development. Furthermore by defining the normal developmental stages of the functional segregation of category-specific domains in inferotemporal cortex, we will see whether the acquisition of particular object recognition skills correlates with particular anatomical developmental stages, possibly illuminating the functional consequences of having specialized domains. In addition, we will examine the relationship between category-selectivity and retinotopy. Our working hypothesis is that a retinotopic organization in IT precedes category-selectivity and biases the processing of particular objects (e.g. faces in foveal representations of IT and places in peripheral representations of IT). We propose that this initial retinotopic proto-organization eventually gives way to a spatially invariant, non-retinotopic category- selective organization.