scholarly journals Global Visual Motion Sensitivity: Associations with Parietal Area and Children's Mathematical Cognition

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (12) ◽  
pp. 1897-1908 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Braddick ◽  
Janette Atkinson ◽  
Erik Newman ◽  
Natacha Akshoomoff ◽  
Joshua M. Kuperman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Brain Development ◽  
Numerical Cognition ◽  
Visual Motion ◽  
Dorsal Stream ◽  
Motion Processing ◽  
Intraparietal Sulcus ◽  
Global Motion ◽  
Visuomotor Integration ◽  
Motion Sensitivity

Sensitivity to global visual motion has been proposed as a signature of brain development, related to the dorsal rather than ventral cortical stream. Thresholds for global motion have been found to be elevated more than for global static form in many developmental disorders, leading to the idea of “dorsal stream vulnerability.” Here we explore the association of global motion thresholds with individual differences in children's brain development, in a group of typically developing 5- to 12-year-olds. Good performance was associated with a relative increase in parietal lobe surface area, most strongly around the intraparietal sulcus and decrease in occipital area. In line with the involvement of intraparietal sulcus, areas in visuospatial and numerical cognition, we also found that global motion performance was correlated with tests of visuomotor integration and numerical skills. Individual differences in global form detection showed none of these anatomical or cognitive correlations. This suggests that the correlations with motion sensitivity are unlikely to reflect general perceptual or attentional abilities required for both form and motion. We conclude that individual developmental variations in global motion processing are not linked to greater area in the extrastriate visual areas, which initially process such motion, but in the parietal systems that make decisions based on this information. The overlap with visuospatial and numerical abilities may indicate the anatomical substrate of the “dorsal stream vulnerability” proposed as characterizing neurodevelopmental disorders.

Visual Development

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janette Atkinson
Keyword(s):  
Developmental Disorders ◽  
Numerical Cognition ◽  
Dorsal Stream ◽  
Ventral Stream ◽  
Visual Development ◽  
Motion Processing ◽  
Global Motion ◽  
Visual Responses ◽  
Motion Sensitivity ◽  
Static Form

Human visual development is a complex dynamic psychological/neurobiological process, being part of the developing systems for cognition, action, and attention. This article reviews current knowledge and methods of study of human visual development in infancy and childhood, in relation to typical early visual brain development, and how it can change in developmental disorders, both acquired (e.g., related to at-risk births) and genetic disorders. The newborn infant starts life with a functioning subcortical visual system which controls newborn orienting to nearby high contrast objects and faces. Although visual cortex may be active from birth, its characteristic stimulus selectivity and control of visual responses is generally seen to emerge around six to twelve weeks after birth. By age six months the infant has adequate acuity and contrast sensitivity in nearby space, and operating cortical mechanisms for discriminating colors, shapes, faces, movement, stereo depth, and distance of objects, as well as the ability to focus and shift attention between objects of interest. This may include both feedforward and feedback pathways between cortical areas and between cortical and subcortical areas. Two cortical streams start to develop and become interlinked, the dorsal stream underpinning motion, spatial perception and actions, and the ventral stream for recognition of objects and faces. The neural systems developing control and planning of actions include those for directed eye movements, reaching and grasping, and the beginnings of locomotion, with these action systems being integrated into the other developing subcortical and cortical visual networks by one year of age. Analysis of global static form (pattern) and global motion processing allows the development of dorsal and ventral streams to be monitored from infancy through childhood. The development of attention, visuomotor control and spatial cognition in the first years show aspects of function related to the developing dorsal stream, and their integration with the ventral stream. The milestones of typical visual development can be used to characterize visual and visuo-cognitive disorders early in life, such as in infants with perinatal brain injuries and those born very prematurely. The concept of “dorsal stream vulnerability” is outlined. It was initially based on deficits in global motion sensitivity relative to static form sensitivity, but can be extended to the planning and execution of visuomotor actions and problems of attention, together with visuospatial and numerical cognition. These problems are found in the phenotype of children with both genetic developmental disorders (e.g., Williams syndrome, autism, fragile-X, and dyslexia), and in acquired developmental disorders related to very preterm birth, or in children with abnormal visual input such as congenital cataract, refractive errors, or amblyopia. However, there are subtle differences in the manifestation of these disorders which may also vary considerably across individuals. Development in these clinical conditions illustrates the early, but limited, plasticity of visual brain mechanisms, and provides a challenge for the future in designing successful intervention and treatment.

scholarly journals Visual motion and decision-making in dyslexia: Evidence of reduced accumulation of sensory evidence and related neural dynamics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Manning ◽  
Cameron D Hassall ◽  
Laurence T Hunt ◽  
Anthony M Norcia ◽  
Eric-Jan Wagenmakers ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Visual Motion ◽  
Motion Processing ◽  
Global Motion ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Behavioural Responses ◽  
Visual Motion Processing ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Sensory Evidence

Children with and without dyslexia differ in their behavioural responses to visual information, particularly when required to pool dynamic signals over space and time. Importantly, multiple processes contribute to behavioural responses. Here we investigated which processing stages are affected in children with dyslexia when performing visual motion processing tasks, by combining two methods that are sensitive to the dynamic processes leading to responses. We used a diffusion model which decomposes response time and accuracy into distinct cognitive constructs, and high-density EEG. 50 children with dyslexia and 50 typically developing children aged 6 to 14 years judged the direction of motion as quickly and accurately as possible in two global motion tasks, which varied in their requirements for segregating signal-from-noise. Following our pre-registered analyses, we fitted hierarchical Bayesian diffusion models to the data, blinded to group membership. Unblinding revealed reduced evidence accumulation in children with dyslexia compared to typical children for both tasks. We also identified a response-locked EEG component which was maximal over centro-parietal electrodes which indicated a neural correlate of reduced drift-rate in dyslexia, thereby linking brain and behaviour. We suggest that children with dyslexia are slower to extract sensory evidence from global motion displays, regardless of whether they are required to segregate signal-from-noise, thus furthering our understanding of atypical perceptual decision-making processes in dyslexia.

scholarly journals Dorsal and Ventral Stream Function in Children With Developmental Coordination Disorder

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Serena Micheletti ◽  
Fleur Corbett ◽  
Janette Atkinson ◽  
Oliver Braddick ◽  
Paola Mattei ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Developmental Coordination Disorder ◽  
Motor Impairment ◽  
Dorsal Stream ◽  
Ventral Stream ◽  
Global Motion ◽  
Motion Sensitivity ◽  
Global Form ◽  
Global Coherence ◽  
Static Form ◽  
Coordination Disorder

Dorsal stream cortical networks underpin a cluster of visuomotor, visuospatial, and visual attention functions. Sensitivity to global coherence of motion and static form is considered a signature of visual cortical processing in the dorsal stream (motion) relative to the ventral stream (form). Poorer sensitivity to global motion compared to global static form has been found across a diverse range of neurodevelopmental disorders, suggesting a “dorsal stream vulnerability.” However, previous studies of global coherence sensitivity in Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) have shown conflicting findings. We examined two groups totalling 102 children with DCD (age 5–12 years), using the “Ball in the Grass” psychophysical test to compare sensitivity to global motion and global static form. Motor impairment was measured using the Movement-ABC (M-ABC). Global coherence sensitivity was compared with a typically developing control group (N = 69) in the same age range. Children with DCD showed impaired sensitivity to global motion (p = 0.002), but not global form (p = 0.695), compared to controls. Within the DCD group, motor impairment showed a significant linear relationship with global form sensitivity (p < 0.001). There was also a significant quadratic relationship between motor impairment and global motion sensitivity (p = 0.046), where poorer global motion sensitivity was only apparent with greater motor impairment. We suggest that two distinct visually related components, associated with global form and global motion sensitivity, contribute to DCD differentially over the range of severity of the disorder. Possible neural circuitry underlying these relationships is discussed.

scholarly journals Distributed and Retinotopically Asymmetric Processing of Coherent Motion in Mouse Visual Cortex

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin K. Sit ◽  
Michael J. Goard
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Visual Motion ◽  
Dorsal Stream ◽  
Coherent Motion ◽  
Motion Processing ◽  
Calcium Indicator ◽  
Mouse Cortex ◽  
Visual Areas ◽  
Cortical Regions ◽  
Visual Cortical

ABSTRACTPerception of visual motion is important for a range of ethological behaviors in mammals. In primates, specific higher visual cortical regions are specialized for processing of coherent visual motion. However, the distribution of motion processing among visual cortical areas in mice is unclear, despite the powerful genetic tools available for measuring population neural activity. Here, we used widefield and 2-photon calcium imaging of transgenic mice expressing a calcium indicator in excitatory neurons to measure mesoscale and cellular responses to coherent motion across the visual cortex. Imaging of primary visual cortex (V1) and several higher visual areas (HVAs) during presentation of natural movies and random dot kinematograms (RDKs) revealed heterogeneous responses to coherent motion. Although coherent motion responses were observed throughout visual cortex, particular HVAs in the putative dorsal stream (PM, AL, AM) exhibited stronger responses than ventral stream areas (LM and LI). Moreover, beyond the differences between visual areas, there was considerable heterogeneity within each visual area. Individual visual areas exhibited an asymmetry across the vertical retinotopic axis (visual elevation), such that neurons representing the inferior visual field exhibited greater responses to coherent motion. These results indicate that processing of visual motion in mouse cortex is distributed unevenly across visual areas and exhibits a spatial bias within areas, potentially to support processing of optic flow during spatial navigation.

scholarly journals Individual differences in children’s global motion sensitivity correlate with TBSS-based measures of the superior longitudinal fasciculus

2017 ◽  
Vol 141 ◽  
pp. 145-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Braddick ◽  
Janette Atkinson ◽  
Natacha Akshoomoff ◽  
Erik Newman ◽  
Lauren B. Curley ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Global Motion ◽  
Superior Longitudinal Fasciculus ◽  
Motion Sensitivity

Visual Motion Processing

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Guthier
Keyword(s):  
Optical Flow ◽  
Biological Motion ◽  
Visual Motion ◽  
Dynamic Environment ◽  
Dorsal Stream ◽  
Direction Selectivity ◽  
Motion Processing ◽  
Feed Forward Neural Network ◽  
Visual Motion Processing ◽  
Natural Counterpart

The capability to recognize biological motion, i.e. gestures, human actions or face movements is crucial for social interactions, for predators, prey or artifcial systems interacting in a dynamic environment. In this thesis an artifcial feed-forward neural network for biological motion recognition is proposed. Like its natural counterpart, it consists of multiple layers organized in two streams, one for processing static and one for processing dynamic form information. The key component of the proposed system is a novel unsupervised learning algorithn, called VNMF, that is based on sparsity, non-negativity, inhibition and direction selectivity. In the frst layer of the dorsal stream, the VNMF is modifed to solve the optical flow estimation problem. In the subsequent layer the VNMF algorithm extracts prototypical patterns, such as optical flow patterns shaped e.g. as moving heads or lim parts. For the ventral stream the VNMF algorithm learns distict gradient structures, resembling edg...

Case Report: Management of a Patient with mTBI and Vestibular Hypofunction with the Binasal Occlusion Technique

2018 ◽  
pp. 87-90
Keyword(s):  
Case Report ◽  
Visual Motion ◽  
Hand Movement ◽  
Motion Sensitivity ◽  
Vestibular Hypofunction ◽  
First Case ◽  
Neurological Exam ◽  
History Of ◽  
Occlusion Technique ◽  
Visual Vertigo

Background: Binasal Occlusion (BNO) is a clinical technique used by many neurorehabilitative optometrists in patients with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) and increased visual motion sensitivity (VMS) or visual vertigo. BNO is a technique in which partial occluders are added to the spectacle lenses to suppress the abnormal peripheral visual motion information. This technique helps in reducing VMS symptoms (i.e., nausea, dizziness, balance difficulty, visual confusion). Case Report: A 44-year-old AA female presented for a routine eye exam with a history of mTBI approximately 33 years ago. She was suffering from severe dizziness for the last two years that was adversely impacting her ADLs. The dizziness occurred in all body positions and all environments throughout the day. She was diagnosed with vestibular hypofunction and had undergone vestibular therapy but reported little improvement. Neurological exam revealed dizziness with both OKN drum and hand movement, especially in the left visual field. BNO technique resulted in immediate relief of her dizziness symptoms. Conclusion: To our knowledge, this is the first case that illustrates how the BNO technique in isolation can be beneficial for patients with mTBI and vestibular hypofunction. It demonstrates the success that BNO has in filtering abnormal peripheral visual motion in these patients.

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