Abstract
Topographic maps of the sensory periphery are a fundamental feature of information processing in the primate brain. The adult visual system comprises several retinotopic maps. Here, we investigated whether these topographic maps are present at birth in humans and how the neonatal visual system compares to that of adults. We performed seed-based correlation analyses on resting-state fMRI data from the developing (neonates) and young adult (22-35 years old) human connectome projects. Visual areas were identified from adult probabilistic atlases of 22 retinotopic maps (Wang et al. 2015) and 7 category-selective (faces, scenes, bodies) areas. To map putative visual areas in neonates, each neonate’s cortical surface was registered to an adult cortical surface template (fsaverage) and the adult probabilistic atlases were projected onto each neonate’s cortical surface. To evaluate areal organization, correlation analyses were conducted on the mean activity of each area. To evaluate retinotopic organization, correlation analyses were conducted between 5 eccentricity bands within primary visual cortex and the activity throughout the rest of the brain. Areal distinctions and retinotopic correlations were present throughout occipital, temporal, and posterior parietal cortices in neonates and adults. Topological analyses on the area-by-area correlations revealed distinctions between ventral, lateral, and dorsal visual cortices comparable to adults (Haak & Beckmann, 2017) and differing from the two-pathway organization in macaques (Arcaro & Livingstone, 2017). Eccentricity-based correlations were apparent throughout much of visual cortex. Correlations on category-selective areas revealed a macroscale lateral-medial organization across ventral temporal cortex with little evidence for category-specific distinctions. Thalamo-cortical correlations revealed distinctions between dorsal and ventral pulvinar previously found in adults (Arcaro et al. 2018). Overall, our results demonstrate that the basic topographic organization of the human visual system is established before birth. This early emerging architecture likely plays a role in shaping the development of the visual system postnatally.