Taddei Matilde, Tinelli Francesca, Faccio Flavia, Riva Daria, Bulgheroni Sara
Pediatric Neuroscience Department Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta, Milano, Italy.
Department of Developmental Neuroscience IRCCS Fondazione Stella Maris, Pisa, Italy.
Pediatr Res. 2024 Oct 16. doi: 10.1038/s41390-024-03513-9.
Visuo-spatial and visuo-perceptual functioning is widely studied in preterm child and is strongly sex-specific. However, little to no data is available regarding male-female differences in preterm children and adolescents and about the interaction effect between sex and preterm birth.
We studied 30 adolescents born preterm with normal cognitive and clinical neurological outcomes and 34 age-matched controls to investigate the interaction between levels of prematurity and sex in predicting the outcome of visual pathways functioning and to explore the relation between psychophysiological perceptive processing and neuropsychological performance.
In the presence of prematurity, a greater female vulnerability in central visuo-cognitive processing (Form Coherence Task), but not in neuropsychological accuracy (Street Completion Test and Visual Object and Space Perception battery), seems to be more evident. Moreover, the psychophysical threshold is correlated to neuropsychological accuracy only in preterm females and not in males.
These results support the idea that the male vulnerability in cognitive functioning described in prematurity-related developmental conditions is negligible during school age in children-adolescents with normal cognitive and clinical neurological outcomes.
Visuo-perceptual functioning is widely studied in prematurity. However, few data are available about the interaction effect between sex and preterm birth in predicting visuo-perceptual functioning. We evidenced that in females born preterm with preserved cognitive abilities, the efficiency of the psychophysical visuo-perceptual threshold is reduced, but not related to the neuropsychological performance. Females may implement compensation strategies to achieve good performance regardless of the perceptual threshold. The present study addresses an important gap in literature, suggesting possible sex-specific outcomes in visuo-perceptual ability among preterm children and adolescents with normal intelligence and neurological outcomes.
视觉空间和视觉感知功能在早产儿中得到了广泛研究，且具有很强的性别特异性。然而，关于早产儿和青少年的性别差异以及性别与早产之间的交互作用，几乎没有可用数据。
我们研究了30名认知和临床神经学结果正常的早产青少年以及34名年龄匹配的对照组，以调查早产程度和性别在预测视觉通路功能结果方面的交互作用，并探索心理生理感知处理与神经心理表现之间的关系。
在存在早产的情况下，女性在中央视觉认知处理（形式连贯性任务）方面的更大易损性似乎更为明显，但在神经心理准确性（街道完成测试和视觉物体与空间感知电池测试）方面并非如此。此外，心理物理阈值仅与早产女性的神经心理准确性相关，而与男性无关。
这些结果支持这样一种观点，即在认知和临床神经学结果正常的儿童青少年中，与早产相关的发育状况中所描述的男性在认知功能方面的易损性在学龄期可忽略不计。
视觉感知功能在早产方面得到了广泛研究。然而，关于性别与早产在预测视觉感知功能方面的交互作用，可用数据很少。我们证明，对于认知能力保留的早产女性，心理物理视觉感知阈值的效率降低，但与神经心理表现无关。女性可能会实施补偿策略以实现良好表现，而不管感知阈值如何。本研究填补了文献中的一个重要空白，表明在智力和神经学结果正常的早产儿和青少年中，视觉感知能力可能存在性别特异性结果。
