Development and sex modulate visuospatial oscillatory dynamics in typically-developing children and adolescents

NeuroImage

卷:221

Vince D. Calhoun¹  Boman R. Groff¹  Tony W. Wilson²  Alex I. Wiesman²  Jacob A. Eastman²  Elizabeth Heinrichs-Graham³  Yu-Ping Wang³  Julia M. Stephen⁴  Abraham D. Killanin⁴  Michaela R. Frenzel⁴ 

[1] Aging (CoNDA) Center, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, United States;

[2] Center for Magnetoencephalography, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, United States;

[3] Cognitive Neuroscience of Development &

[4] Department of Neurological Sciences, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, United States;

关键词: Puberty;    MEG;    Magnetoencephalography;    Attention;    Brain;    Vision;   

DOI  :  

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Visuospatial processing is a cognitive function that is critical to navigating one's surroundings and begins to develop during infancy. Extensive research has examined visuospatial processing in adults, but far less work has investigated how visuospatial processing and the underlying neurophysiology changes from childhood to early adolescence, which is a critical period of human development that is marked by the onset of puberty. In the current study, we examined behavioral performance and the oscillatory dynamics serving visuospatial processing using magnetoencephalography (MEG) in a cohort of 70 children and young adolescents aged 8–15 years. All participants performed a visuospatial processing task during MEG, and the resulting oscillatory responses were imaged using a beamformer and probed for developmental and sex-related differences. Our findings indicated that reaction time on the task was negatively correlated with age, and that the amplitude of theta oscillations in the medial occipital cortices increased with age. Significant sex-by-age interactions were also detected, with female participants exhibiting increased theta oscillatory activity in the right prefrontal cortex with increasing age, while male participants exhibited theta increases in the left parietal lobe/left precuneus and left supplementary motor area with increasing age. These data indicate that different nodes of the visuospatial processing network develop earlier in males compared to females (and vice versa) in this age range, which may have major implications for the developmental trajectory of behavioral performance and executive function more generally during the transition through puberty.

【 授权许可】

Unknown