Tracking the Functional Development of the Corpus Callosum in Children Using Behavioral and Evoked Potential Interhemispheric Transfer Times

ABSTRACT

Visual functions requiring interhemispheric transfer exhibit a long developmental trajectory up to age 12, which might be constrained by corpus callosum maturation. Here, we use electrophysiological and behavioral crossed-uncrossed differences (CUDs) in a visual Poffenberger paradigm to estimate the interhemispheric transfer time (IHTT)—a measure of corpus callosum maturation—in 7-year-old children and adults. Adults’ electrophysiological CUDs were faster than 7-year-olds’. Behavioral CUDs did not differ and proved to be unreliable in a 6-month follow-up test. These findings suggest that the corpus callosum still undergoes development at the age of 7 that can only reliably be traced with neuroscientific methods.

Acknowledgments

We thank Helen Prüfer, Luzie Mount, Marie Czech, Katharina Sommer, and Sabine Quick for assisting in data collection. We thank Luzie Mount for assisting in preprocessing of EEG raw data.