4.7 Article

Typical and Atypical Development of Functional Connectivity in the Face Network

Journal

JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
Volume 35, Issue 43, Pages 14624-14635

Publisher

SOC NEUROSCIENCE
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0969-15.2015

Keywords

development; developmental prosopagnosia; face recognition; fusiform face area; occipital face area; resting-state functional connectivity

Categories

Funding

  1. National Natural Science Foundation of China [31230031, 91132703, 31471067]
  2. National Basic Research Program of China [2014CB846101]
  3. Youth Scholars Program of Beijing Normal University [2014NT14]

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Extensive studies have demonstrated that face recognition performance does not reach adult levels until adolescence. However, there is no consensus on whether such prolonged improvement stems from development of general cognitive factors or face-specific mechanisms. Here, we used behavioral experiments and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to evaluate these two hypotheses. With a large cohort of children (n = 379), we found that the ability of face-specific recognition in humans increased with age throughout childhood and into late adolescence in both face memory and face perception. Neurally, to circumvent the potential problem of age differences in task performance, attention, or cognitive strategies in task-state fMRI studies, we measured the resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) between the occipital face area (OFA) and fusiform face area (FFA) inhumanbrain and found that the OFA-FFA RSFC increased until 11-13 years of age. Moreover, the OFA-FFA RSFC was selectively impaired in adults with developmental prosopagnosia (DP). In contrast, no age-related changes or differences between DP and normal adults were observed for RSFCs in the object system. Finally, the OFA-FFA RSFC matured earlier than face selectivity in either the OFA or FFA. These results suggest the critical role of the OFA-FFA RSFC in the development of face recognition. Together, our findings support the hypothesis that prolonged development of face recognition is face specific, not domain general.

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