Longitudinal assessments of functional near-infrared spectroscopy background functional connectivity in low- and middle-income infants during a social cognition task.

Shortly after birth, human infants demonstrate behavioral selectivity to social stimuli. However, the neural underpinnings of this selectivity are largely unknown. Here, we examine patterns of functional connectivity to determine how regions of the brain interact while processing social stimuli and how these interactions change during the first 2 years of life.

Multiple timescales of learning indicated by changes in evidence-accumulation processes during perceptual decision-making.

Evidence accumulation models have enabled strong advances in our understanding of decision-making, yet their application to examining learning has not been common. Using data from participants completing a dynamic random dot-motion direction discrimination task across four days, we characterized alterations in two components of perceptual decision-making (Drift Diffusion Model drift rate and response boundary). Continuous-time learning models were applied to characterize trajectories of performance change, with different models allowing for varying dynamics.

Temporal Predictability Modulates Cortical Activity and Functional Connectivity in the Frontoparietal Network in 6-Month-Old Infants.

Despite the abundance of behavioral evidence showing the interaction between attention and prediction in infants, the neural underpinnings of this interaction are not yet well understood. The endogenous attentional function in adults have been largely localized to the frontoparietal network. However, resting-state and neuroanatomical investigations have found that this frontoparietal network exhibits a protracted developmental trajectory and involves weak and unmyelinated long-range connections early in infancy.

Retinotopic organization of visual cortex in human infants.

Vision develops rapidly during infancy, yet how visual cortex is organized during this period is unclear. In particular, it is unknown whether functional maps that organize the mature adult visual cortex are present in the infant striate and extrastriate cortex. Here, we test the functional maturity of infant visual cortex by performing retinotopic mapping with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Evidence of hippocampal learning in human infants.

The hippocampus is essential for human memory. The protracted maturation of memory capacities from infancy through early childhood is thus often attributed to hippocampal immaturity. The hippocampus of human infants has been characterized in terms of anatomy, but its function has never been tested directly because of technical challenges.