2007 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Mechanism of Facial Recognition in Patients with Williams Syndrome
| Project/Area Number |
17591134
|
|---|
| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
|
| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
|---|
| Section | 一般 |
|---|
| Research Field |
Pediatrics
|
|---|
| Research Institution | Institute for Developmental Research, Aichi Human Service Center |
|---|
Principal Investigator |
NAKAMURA Miho Institute for Developmental Research, Aichi Human Service Center, Institute for Developmental Research, functioning science, senior researcher (70291945)
|
|---|
| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
WATANABE Shoko National Institute for Physiological Science, Department of sensory-motor integration, assistant professor (00321612)
|
|---|
| Project Period (FY) |
2005 – 2007
|
| Keywords | Williams syndrome / face / face inversion effects / MEG(magneto-encephalography) / ERP(event related potentials |
|---|
| Research Abstract |
Williams syndrome(WS) in known for its peaks and valleys of its cognitive abilities with excessive visuo-spatial disability. This is considered to be due to the severe dysfunction in dorsal pathway of the visual system while the functions of the ventral pathway are relatively preserved. Facial recognition is considered to be one of the typical function of the ventral pathway and has been considered to be relatively preserved in patients with WS. However recent research has revealed that the face inversion effects(FIE ; increasing difficulty in determining people's faces when they are inverted or delay in response time when observing inverted faces) usually observed with typically developing adults were not confirmed in some patients with WS.
In this report we investigated if the FIE is present in patients with WS, if the development of face inversion effects are different from typically developing people and if there are some factors influencing the emergence of FIE.
Five patients with W
… More
S were investigated using MEG of ERP methods and were compared with the results of age-matched typically developing people. This neurophysiological investigation revealed that the FIE were absent in most of the patients. However, one patient at the age of 14 showed FIE and the neuropysiological data were not significantly different from those of TD. And another eleven years old boy did not show significant difference with the age matched TD though FIE was absent.
The factors that differentiate those with and without FIE were then investigated by reexamining the longitudinal medical or psychological follow-up data of the participants. The only factor with the one with FIE or those who did not show significant difference from the age matched TD group was the better development in 3D copying tasks, which is one of the function of dorsal pathway of the visual system.
The finding suggest that the at least part of the functional development of ventral pathway may correlate with that of dorsal pathway and might shed lights on clarifying re relationship of the two pathways. Less
|
