A brief period of postnatal visual deprivation permanently alters visual motion processing in early visual regions.

Rezk, Mohamed [UCL] Mattioni, Stefania [UCL]

How does early visual experience shape the development of the visual motion network? To address this question, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to characterize the brain response elicited by visual motion in adults born with dense bilateral cataract that was treated early in life. Our results suggest that early cataract patients showed reduced recruitment of the early visual areas while processing motion information when compared to matched controls with typical visual development. Interestingly, no alterations were observed in the higher order visual motion area hMT+/V5. Psychophysiological interaction analyses demonstrated reduced interhemispheric connectivity in V1, and reduced connectivity between bilateral hMT+/V5 and V1 during visual motion processing. The altered connectivity profile of V1, but not hMT+/V5, in cataract-reversal patients was confirmed using independent data collected without the subjects being involved in a specific task (resting-state). Altogether these results suggest that a brief and transient period of visual deprivation early in life has a region-specific impact on the visual motion network with V1 being permanently affected while hMT+/V5 shows resilience to deprivation.