Related Experiment Video
Updated: Apr 15, 2026
How to Obtain Reliable Visual Event-related Potentials in Newborns
Published on: October 24, 2019
Visual fixation in human newborns correlates with extensive white matter networks and predicts long-term
Susanna Stjerna1, Viljami Sairanen2, Riitta Gröhn1
1Departments of Clinical Neurophysiology, HUS Medical Imaging Center, and Neurological Sciences.
Insights
Newborn visual fixation (VF) predicts later visuomotor and visual reasoning skills. This early visual ability is linked to widespread white matter integrity, suggesting it supports cognitive development.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Infants naturally seek eye contact and focus on faces, crucial for cognitive development.
- The link between newborn visual abilities and later cognitive outcomes remains unclear.
- Understanding early visual fixation's neural basis is key to cognitive development research.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the relationship between newborn visual fixation (VF) and gaze behavior (GB) with later cognitive performance.
- To explore the microstructural brain correlates of newborn VF using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI).
Main Methods:
- Assessed newborn VF and GB in relation to visuomotor and visual reasoning tasks at 2 and 5 years.
- Analyzed brain microstructural integrity via voxel-based analysis of fractional anisotropy (FA) in newborn DTI scans.
- Examined two cohorts with cognitive follow-up (n=57 at 2 years, n=1410 at 5 years).
Main Results:
- Newborn VF significantly correlated with visual-motor performance at both 2 and 5 years.
- Newborn VF also predicted visual reasoning abilities at 5 years.
- Higher newborn VF was associated with increased fractional anisotropy (FA) across white matter, indicating better brain microstructure.
Conclusions:
- Newborn visual fixation is a significant predictor of visuocognitive development.
- Early visual fixation is supported by brain-wide subcortical networks and white matter integrity.
- Visual fixation, not motor performance, is an early indicator of future visuocognitive abilities.
Abstract:
Infants are well known to seek eye contact, and they prefer to fixate on developmentally meaningful objects, such as the human face. It is also known, that visual abilities are important for the developmental cascades of cognition from later infancy to childhood. It is less understood, however, whether newborn visual abilities relate to later cognitive development, and whether newborn ability for visual fixation can be assigned to early microstructural maturation. Here, we investigate relationship between newborn visual fixation (VF) and gaze behavior (GB) to performance in visuomotor and visual reasoning tasks in two cohorts with cognitive follow-up at 2 (n = 57) and 5 (n = 1410) years of age. We also analyzed brain microstructural correlates to VF (n = 45) by voxel-based analysis of fractional anisotropy (FA) in newborn diffusion tensor imaging. Our results show that newborn VF is significantly related to visual-motor performance at both 2 and 5 years, as well as to visual reasoning at 5 years of age. Moreover, good newborn VF relates to widely increased FA levels across the white matter. Comparison to motor performance indicated that early VF is preferentially related to visuocognitive development, and that early motor performance relates neither to white matter integrity nor to visuocognitive development. The present findings suggest that newborn VF is supported by brainwide subcortical networks and it represents an early building block for the developmental cascades of cognition.
