Vision develops rapidly during infancy, yet how visual cortex is organized during this period is unclear. In particular, it is unknown whether functional maps that organize the mature adult visual cortex are present in the infant striate and extrastriate cortex. Here we test the functional maturity of infant visual cortex by performing retinotopic mapping with fMRI. Infants aged 5–23 months had retinotopic maps, with alternating preferences for vertical and horizontal meridians indicative of area boundaries from V1 to V4, and an orthogonal gradient of preferences from high to low spatial frequencies. The presence of multiple visual maps throughout visual cortex in infants indicates a greater maturity of extrastriate cortex than previously appreciated. The areas showed subtle age-related fine-tuning, suggesting that early maturation undergoes continued refinement. This early maturation of area boundaries and tuning may scaffold subsequent developmental changes. 

Please refer to the manuscript for details.

Citation: Ellis, C. T., Yates, T. S., Skalaban, L. J., Bejjanki, V. R. Arcaro, M. J., & Turk-Browne, N. B., (2021). Retinotopic organization of visual cortex in human infants. Neuron

Please refer to the README for guidance on how to use this data.

Note from Aug 19th, 2021: Note that the burn-in information for each of the raw runs was not previously provided. This has now also been uploaded. The README was edited to include this information but otherwise, nothing else was changed.