Dorsal stream development in motion and structure-from-motion perception

Little is known about the neural development underlying high order visual perception. For example, in detection of structures by coherently moving dots, motion information must interact with shape-based information to enable object recognition. Tasks involving these different motion-based discriminations are known to activate distinct specialized brain areas in adults. Here, we investigate neural development of normally developing children using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during perception of randomly moving point-light dots (RM), coherently moving dots that formed a 3D rotating object (SFM) and static dots. Perception of RM enhanced neural activity as compared with static dots in motion processing-related visual areas, including visual area 3a (V3a), and middle temporal area (hMT+) in 10 adults (age 20-30 years). Children (age 5-6 years) showed less pronounced activity in area V3a than adults. Perception of SFM induced enhanced neural activity as compared to RM in adults in the left parietal shape area (PSA), whereas children increased neural activity within dorsal (V3a) and ventral brain areas (lingual gyrus) of the occipital cortex. These findings provide evidence of neural development within the dorsal pathway. First, maturation was associated with enhanced activity in specialized areas within the dorsal pathway during RM perception (V3a) and SFM perception (PSA). Secondly, high order visual perception-related neural development was associated with a shift in neural activity from low level shape and motion specialized areas in children, including partially immature area V3a, to high order areas in the parietal lobule (PSA) in adults.