title: Motion perception in preterm children: role of prematurity and brain damage.
abstract: We tested 26 school-aged children born preterm at a gestational age below 34 weeks, 13 with and 13 without periventricular brain damage, with four different visual stimuli assessing perception of pure global motion (optic flow), with some form information (segregated translational motion) and form-defined static stimuli. Results were compared with a group of age-matched healthy term-born controls. Preterm children with brain damage showed significantly lower sensitivities relative to full-term controls in all four tests, whereas those without brain damage were significantly worse than controls only for the pure motion stimuli. Furthermore, when form information was embedded in the stimulus, preterm children with brain lesions scored significantly worse than those without lesions. These results suggest that in preterm children dorsal stream-related functions are impaired irrespective of the presence of brain damage, whereas deficits of the ventral stream are more related to the presence of periventricular brain damage.
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental Neuroscience, Stella Maris Scientific Institute, University of Florence, Italy. a.guzzetta@inpe.unipi.it <a.guzzetta@inpe.unipi.it>
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Guzzetta
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Tinelli
authors.forename: Maria M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Del Viva
authors.forename: Ada
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bancale
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Arrighi
authors.forename: Rosa R
authors.initials: RR
authors.lastname: Pascale
authors.forename: Giovanni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Cioni
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001925:Brain Damage, Chronic / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002648:Child; D015331:Cohort Studies; D002658:Developmental Disabilities / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007234:Infant, Premature / Q000254:growth & development*; D007969:Leukomalacia, Periventricular / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010468:Perceptual Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation