title: Microstructural proliferation in human cortex is coupled with the development of face processing.
abstract: How does cortical tissue change as brain function and behavior improve from childhood to adulthood? By combining quantitative and functional magnetic resonance imaging in children and adults, we find differential development of high-level visual areas that are involved in face and place recognition. Development of face-selective regions, but not place-selective regions, is dominated by microstructural proliferation. This tissue development is correlated with specific increases in functional selectivity to faces, as well as improvements in face recognition, and ultimately leads to differentiated tissue properties between face- and place-selective regions in adulthood, which we validate with postmortem cytoarchitectonic measurements. These data suggest a new model by which emergent brain function and behavior result from cortical tissue proliferation rather than from pruning exclusively.
authors.affiliation: Neurosciences Program, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
authors.forename: Jesse
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gomez
authors.affiliation: Psychology Department, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
authors.forename: Michael A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Barnett
authors.affiliation: Psychology Department, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
authors.forename: Vaidehi
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Natu
authors.affiliation: Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences (ELSC), Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel.
authors.forename: Aviv
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mezer
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-1), Research Centre Jülich, Jülich, Germany.
authors.forename: Nicola
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Palomero-Gallagher
authors.affiliation: Psychology Department, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
authors.forename: Kevin S
authors.initials: KS
authors.lastname: Weiner
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-1), Research Centre Jülich, Jülich, Germany.|Cécile and Oskar Vogt Institute for Brain Research, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany.|JARA-BRAIN Research Division, Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA), Jülich, Germany.
authors.forename: Katrin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Amunts
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-1), Research Centre Jülich, Jülich, Germany.|JARA-BRAIN Research Division, Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA), Jülich, Germany.|Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany.
authors.forename: Karl
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zilles
authors.affiliation: Neurosciences Program, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. kalanit@stanford.edu.|Psychology Department, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.|Stanford Neurosciences Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
authors.forename: Kalanit
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Grill-Spector
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001344:Autopsy; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D000066499:Facial Recognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D055815:Young Adult