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Infant Neuroimaging and the Origins of Face Responses in Human Cortex

In adults, cortical regions in the fusiform face area (FFA), superior temporal sulcus (STS), and medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) respond selectively to faces but underlie distinct perceptual and social processes. When do each of these regions, and their distinctive functions, develop? We reviewed recent studies of awake human infants’ cortical responses to faces using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and functional MRI (fMRI). The results converged and do not support a slow, sequential posterior-to-anterior development of face-selective responses. Instead, cortical face-selective responses arise very early and simultaneously in infancy and may reflect distinctively social processes from the start. Read More

Preliminary evidence for selective cortical responses to music in one-month-old infants

Responses to music, speech, and control sounds matched for the spectrotemporal modulation-statistics of each sound were measured from 2- to 11-week-old sleeping infants using fMRI. Auditory cortex was significantly activated by these stimuli in 19 out of 36 sleeping infants. Selective responses to music compared to the three other stimulus classes were found in non-primary auditory cortex but not in nearby Heschl's Gyrus. Selective responses to speech were not observed in planned analyses but were observed in unplanned, exploratory analyses. Read More

A Size-Adaptive 32-Channel Array Coil for Awake Infant Neuroimaging at 3Tesla MRI.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during infancy poses challenges due to practical, methodological, and analytical considerations. The aim of this study was to implement a hardware- related approach to increase subject compliance for fMRI involving awake infants. To accomplish this, we designed, constructed, and evaluated an adaptive 32- channel array coil. Read More

Social Origins of Cortical Face Areas

Adult primates have highly stereotyped cortical regions for perceiving faces. New fMRI data from infant primates show early preferential responses to faces with an organization similar to adult face areas, but do not answer the question of how this organization arises. Recent neuroimaging data also indicate that medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) responds to positive, contingent social interaction beginning in early infancy. Given that faces have a key role in early social interaction, biased connectivity with mPFC may have a role in scaffolding the development of face selective regions. Read More