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Development of visual texture segregation during the first year of life: a high-density electrophysiological study

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Abstract

There are important developmental changes occurring during infancy in visual cortical structures that underlie higher-order perceptual abilities. Using high-density electrophysiological recording techniques, the present study aimed to examine the development of visual mechanisms, during the first year of life, associated with texture segregation. Forty-two normal full term infants were tested at 1, 3, 6 or 12 months of age. Visual-evoked potentials to low-level stimuli varying in orientation (oriVEP) and higher-level textured stimuli (texVEP) were recorded from 128 scalp electrodes. Difference potentials were obtained to extract the VEP component associated specifically with texture segregation (tsVEP). Results show a clear developmental pattern regarding amplitude, latency and scalp distribution of tsVEP, which appears at around 3 months but does not reach maturity by 12 months of age. A reduction in latency is particularly evident between 3 and 6 months, whereas amplitude shows a gradual increase with a marked increment between 3 and 6 months for low-level orientation stimuli and between 6 and 12 months for higher-level textured stimuli. These developmental patterns are attributed to neural maturational processes such as myelination and synaptogenesis. The differential developmental rates can be explained by delayed maturational processes of brain regions involved in more complex visual processing.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (MOP-62888 awarded to M.-S. R., M. L. and M. M.), the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (awarded to M.L.) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (awarded to F.L.), by a ‘chercheur-boursier clinicien’ salary award to M.M. and a scholarship awarded to C.A. both from the ‘Fonds de la Recherche en Santé du Québec’, as well as by a scholarship to C.A. by the ‘Fonds de Recherche en Ophtalmologie de l’Université de Montréal’. The authors wish to thank Prof. Michael Bach, Universitäts-Augenklinik Freiburg, Germany, and Miss Julie Lachapelle, pht., for their support in adapting the tsVEP technique for developmental studies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre de Recherche, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Mère-Enfant (CHUME) Ste-Justine, Montréal, Canada

    Claudine Arcand, Emmanuel Tremblay, Phetsamone Vannasing, Catherine Ouimet, Marie-Sylvie Roy, Franco Lepore & Maryse Lassonde

  2. Centre de Recherche en Neuropsychologie et Cognition (CERNEC), Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada

    Claudine Arcand, Emmanuel Tremblay, Catherine Ouimet, Marie-Sylvie Roy, Franco Lepore, Maryse Lassonde & Michelle McKerral

  3. Département d’Ophtalmologie, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Mère-Enfant (CHUME) Ste-Justine, Montréal, Canada

    Marie-Sylvie Roy & Nicole Fallaha

  4. Département de Psychologie, Université de Montréal, Succ. Centre-Ville, C.P. 6128, H3C 3J7, Montréal, QC, Canada

    Michelle McKerral

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  1. Claudine Arcand
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  2. Emmanuel Tremblay
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  9. Michelle McKerral
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Correspondence to Michelle McKerral.

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Arcand, C., Tremblay, E., Vannasing, P. et al. Development of visual texture segregation during the first year of life: a high-density electrophysiological study. Exp Brain Res 180, 263–272 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-007-0854-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-007-0854-y

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