Schlaggar Bradley L, Brown Timothy T, Lugar Heather M, Visscher Kristina M, Miezin Francis M, Petersen Steven E
Department of Neurology, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA.
Science. 2002 May 24;296(5572):1476-9. doi: 10.1126/science.1069464.
A critical issue in developmental cognitive neuroscience is the extent to which the functional neuroanatomy underlying task performance differs in adults and children. Direct comparisons of brain activation in the left frontal and extrastriate cortex were made in adults and children (aged 7 to 10 years) performing single-word processing tasks with visual presentation; differences were found in circumscribed frontal and extrastriate regions. Conceivably, these differences could be attributable exclusively to performance discrepancies; alternatively, maturational differences in functional neuroanatomy could exist despite similar performance. Some of the brain regions examined showed differences attributable to age independent of performance, suggesting that maturation of the pattern of regional activations for these tasks is incomplete at age 10.
发育认知神经科学中的一个关键问题是，任务表现背后的功能性神经解剖结构在成人和儿童中存在多大程度的差异。对成人和儿童（7至10岁）在视觉呈现下单词处理任务时左额叶和纹外皮质的脑激活进行了直接比较；结果发现，在特定的额叶和纹外区域存在差异。可以想象，这些差异可能完全归因于表现差异；或者，尽管表现相似，但功能性神经解剖结构的成熟差异可能仍然存在。一些被检查的脑区显示出与年龄相关而与表现无关的差异，这表明这些任务的区域激活模式在10岁时尚未完全成熟。
