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Updated: Dec 13, 2025
Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations
Published on: July 1, 2015
Development and sex modulate visuospatial oscillatory dynamics in typically-developing children and adolescents
Abraham D Killanin1, Alex I Wiesman1, Elizabeth Heinrichs-Graham1
1Department of Neurological Sciences, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, United States; Center for Magnetoencephalography, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, United States; Cognitive Neuroscience of Development & Aging (CoNDA) Center, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, NE, United States.
Insights
This study reveals how brain activity for visuospatial processing changes during childhood and adolescence. Different brain regions mature at different rates in boys and girls, impacting cognitive development.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Visuospatial processing is crucial for navigation and develops from infancy.
- Research on visuospatial processing has primarily focused on adults, with limited understanding of childhood and adolescent development.
- Puberty marks a significant period of neurodevelopmental change, influencing cognitive functions like visuospatial processing.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate developmental changes in visuospatial processing and its neural underpinnings in children and young adolescents.
- To examine sex-related differences in the neurophysiology of visuospatial processing during this developmental period.
- To explore the relationship between age, sex, and oscillatory brain activity during a visuospatial task.
Main Methods:
- Magnetoencephalography (MEG) was used to record brain activity in 70 participants aged 8-15 years.
- Participants completed a visuospatial processing task while undergoing MEG.
- Oscillatory brain responses were analyzed using beamforming to identify developmental and sex-specific patterns.
Main Results:
- Reaction time on the visuospatial task decreased with increasing age.
- Theta oscillation amplitude in medial occipital cortices increased with age.
- Sex-by-age interactions revealed distinct patterns of theta activity development in males and females across different brain regions.
Conclusions:
- Visuospatial processing networks exhibit differential developmental trajectories in males and females during childhood and adolescence.
- These findings suggest that certain brain regions involved in visuospatial processing mature earlier in one sex compared to the other.
- Understanding these sex-specific developmental patterns is critical for comprehending the trajectory of behavioral performance and executive functions through puberty.
Abstract:
Visuospatial processing is a cognitive function that is critical to navigating one's surroundings and begins to develop during infancy. Extensive research has examined visuospatial processing in adults, but far less work has investigated how visuospatial processing and the underlying neurophysiology changes from childhood to early adolescence, which is a critical period of human development that is marked by the onset of puberty. In the current study, we examined behavioral performance and the oscillatory dynamics serving visuospatial processing using magnetoencephalography (MEG) in a cohort of 70 children and young adolescents aged 8-15 years. All participants performed a visuospatial processing task during MEG, and the resulting oscillatory responses were imaged using a beamformer and probed for developmental and sex-related differences. Our findings indicated that reaction time on the task was negatively correlated with age, and that the amplitude of theta oscillations in the medial occipital cortices increased with age. Significant sex-by-age interactions were also detected, with female participants exhibiting increased theta oscillatory activity in the right prefrontal cortex with increasing age, while male participants exhibited theta increases in the left parietal lobe/left precuneus and left supplementary motor area with increasing age. These data indicate that different nodes of the visuospatial processing network develop earlier in males compared to females (and vice versa) in this age range, which may have major implications for the developmental trajectory of behavioral performance and executive function more generally during the transition through puberty.
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