Functional neuroanatomy of developmental changes in face processing

描述（由申请人提供）：人类在一生中识别无数张面孔的非凡能力多年来一直引起科学家们的注意。即使是新生婴儿也会注意到人脸。然而，成年人在记忆和区分面孔方面似乎比儿童更熟练，这表明人脸识别有一定程度的可塑性，可能受到经验的影响。面部处理的一个方面似乎经历了发展变化，即感知面部特征配置的细微差异，这是唯一识别一个人所不可或缺的属性。这种类型的处理随着年龄的增长而改善，并持续发展到青春期，而面部识别的其他方面似乎发展得更早，甚至在婴儿时期。以前的研究主要是从行为的角度来研究这些能力的发展，但很少有研究考察大脑的基础记忆识别机制。了解正常发育过程中大脑对人脸识别的基础，对于理解为什么在某些发育障碍（如自闭症或先天性面孔失认症）中大脑不受类似面孔的影响是至关重要的。在本提案中，功能磁共振成像（fMRI）将被用作一种脑成像工具来研究从6岁到成年的正常健康人类志愿者的面部识别能力的发展。这一建议侧重于人脸识别的几个方面，以确定哪些机制随着年龄的增长而改善，哪些机制在整个发展过程中相对稳定。由于fMRI的非侵入性和最小的风险，它是回答这些发育问题的理想选择。考虑到迄今为止很少有研究这样做，这项研究的发现对于建立正常的面部识别大脑发育模式将是不可或缺的。此外，fMRI可以揭示参与人脸处理的大脑区域之间的大规模功能连接模式，本研究将研究连接模式是否经历了发育重组。这条研究路线对于建立一个基线来解释有面部识别困难的个体的大脑连接模式是重要的。最终，这些数据可以为发育障碍的潜在治疗或干预提供信息，并帮助这些个体恢复社会行为的一个重要方面。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The remarkable capacity that humans have to recognize countless faces over a lifetime has captured the attention of scientists for years. Even newborn infants are tuned into and attend to the human face. However, adults appear to be more skilled than children in both remembering and differentiating faces, indicating that there is a certain degree of plasticity in face recognition that may be affected by experience. One aspect of face processing that appears to undergo developmental change is perceiving subtle differences in the configuration of the features of a face, a property that is integral to uniquely identifying a person. This type of processing improves with age and continues to develop well into adolescence whereas other aspects of face recognition appear to develop much earlier, even in infancy. Previous research has focused on the development of these capacities from a behavioral perspective, but little research has examined the brain bases efface recognition mechanisms. Understanding the brain basis efface recognition during normal development is of utmost importance in understanding why the brain is not influenced by similar exposure to faces in some developmental disorders, such as autism or congenital prosopagnosia. In the present proposal, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) will be used as a brain imaging tool to study the development efface recognition capacities from age 6 to adulthood, in normal, healthy human volunteers. This proposal focuses on several aspects of face recognition to determine which mechanisms improve with age and which mechanisms are relatively stable across development. fMRI is ideal for answering such developmental questions due to its non-invasive nature and minimal risks. The findings from this proposal will be integral in establishing the normal pattern of brain development for face recognition, given that few studies have done so to date. Moreover, fMRI can reveal large-scale functional connectivity patterns among brain regions involved in face processing and the present proposal will investigate whether connectivity patterns undergo developmental reorganization. This line of inquiry is important for establishing a baseline to interpret brain connectivity patterns in individuals with difficulties in face recognition. Ultimately, such data can then inform potential treatments or interventions for developmental disorders efface processing and help restore an important aspect of social behavior to these individuals.