The Davida Teller Award Lecture, 2016

Abstract

Research in the Visual Development Unit on “dorsal stream vulnerability' (DSV) arose from research in two somewhat different areas. In the first, using cortical milestones for local and global processing from our neurobiological model, we identified cerebral visual impairment in infants in the first year of life. In the second, using photo/videorefraction in population refractive screening programs, we showed that infant spectacle wear could reduce the incidence of strabismus and amblyopia, but many preschool children, who had been significantly hyperopic earlier, showed visuo-motor and attentional deficits. This led us to compare developing dorsal and ventral streams, using sensitivity to global motion and form as signatures, finding deficits in motion sensitivity relative to form in children with Williams syndrome, or perinatal brain injury in hemiplegia or preterm birth. Later research showed that this “DSV” was common across many disorders, both genetic and acquired, from autism to amblyopia. Here, we extend DSV to be a cluster of problems, common to many disorders, including poor motion sensitivity, visuo-motor spatial integration for planning actions, attention, and number skills. In current research, we find that individual differences in motion coherence sensitivity in typically developing children are correlated with MRI measures of area variations in parietal lobe, fractional anisotropy (from TBSS) of the superior longitudinal fasciculus, and performance on tasks of mathematics and visuo-motor integration. These findings suggest that individual differences in motion sensitivity reflect decision making and attentional control rather than integration in MT/V5 or V3A. Its neural underpinnings may be related to Duncan's “multiple-demand” (MD) system.

Motion perception as a model for perceptual aging

“…Overall, high-level motion perception can be assumed to be substantially modulated by cognitive processes, e.g., predictions, motivation, attention, or memory, which help to assess and interpret the visual input. It has been suggested that the dorsal stream is particularly vulnerable during child development (Atkinson, 2017;Braddick, Atkinson, & Wattam-Bell, 2003). A corresponding vulnerability during aging still awaits clarification.…”

Efficiency in Magnocellular Processing: A Common Deficit in Neurodevelopmental Disorders

“…The observation that Developmental Dyslexia (DD), Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Intellectual Disability (ID), William's and Fragile X Syndrome share a deficit in global motion processing led to the formulation of the Dorsal Stream Vulnerability Hypothesis, by Braddick et al (2003). Since then, many studies have provided further support for the theory (Grinter et al, 2010;Atkinson, 2017) and extended it to include deficits in visuomotor spatial integration for planning actions and attention (Atkinson, 2017). Indeed, epidemiological evidence (Carroll and Owen, 2009;Moskvina et al, 2009) has supported shared symptomology and clustering of neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD) symptoms (DSM-5, American Psychiatric Association, 2013).…”

Concurrent maturation of visuomotor skills and motion perception in typically‐developing children and adolescents

“…MD form stimuli activate the classic motion area MT+, regions in the intraparietal cortex of the dorsal stream, and also regions in the inferior temporal cortex and lateral occipital cortex of the ventral stream (Gulyas, Heywood, Popplewell, Roland, & Cowey, 1994;Meier, Partanen, & Giaschi, 2018). Motion sensitivity continues to improve into the school-age years and the age of maturation to adult-like performance depends on spatial and temporal stimulus parameters (Giaschi & Regan, 1997;Meier & Giaschi, 2014, 2017Parrish, Giaschi, Boden, & Dougherty, 2005;Schrauf, Wist, & Ehrenstein, 1999). Because the performance of young children (4-6 years) is immature for MD form stimuli using slow (<1 deg/s) but not fast (5 deg/s) signal dot speeds (Hayward, Truong, Partanen, & Giaschi, 2011), the current study employed a stimulus with a slow speed (0.1 deg/s) to track development as a function of age.…”

“…It has been suggested that performance on a global motion task can be used as an index of overall dorsal stream function (Braddick et al, 2016;Chakraborty et al, 2017;Thompson et al, 2017). Following this line of thought, research has shown that children with various neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, amblyopia, or preterm birth have impaired sensitivity to motion, which has led to the 'dorsal-stream vulnerability' hypothesis (reviewed in Atkinson, 2017; but also see Grinter, Maybery, & Badcock, 2010).…”