Neuroscience Ireland Conference 2025

Cognition in infancy develops through the interplay of the intrinsic properties of the infant brain and experience, a framework known as neuroconstructivism. However, it is often difficult to specify how this happens for any given cognitive function. To gain insight it is critical to measure not just when the function manifests in behaviour, but how it develops.

We therefore used awake fMRI to characterise a model cognitive function, visual object recognition, which has a well-established neural substrate in the ventral visual stream. Visual object recognition manifests in behaviour towards the end of the first year, and so the team acquired the largest longitudinal cohort of awake fMRI in infants at 2 months (n=112) and 9 months (n=52).

We found rich visual representations even at 2 months, which are strengthened and refined through the first year. At 2 months, these representations were similar to those in a computational model, a deep neural network for visual recognition, that encode the properties that distinguish visual categories.

The maturation of brain regions dissociated from their hierarchy in processing, suggesting neither a straightforward bottom-up nor top-down pattern of development. In sum, our results suggest an interplay of early structure and experience, and demonstrate how awake fMRI and computational modelling can provide a rich characterisation of early development.