Human beings possess an extraordinary talent to identify, recognize and analyse faces of beings similar to them, a basic skill for a social species like the human species.
In adults this talent is based on a specific circuit of areas in the brain that are highly specialized in human face processing (the occipital-temporal cortices areas)
Yet, just a few minutes after birth, new-born babies show preferential leanings towards faces as well as the ability to interact quickly with whoever is looking after them. .
The most widespread and controversial theory to date maintains that the cerebral cortex of new-born babies is too immature and undifferentiated to have a specialized region for face recognition and so such a preference would be determined by various brain structures (subcortical) considered evolutionarily primitive.
Cerebral activation in new-born babies associated with face-preference has never been measured. Is this talent based, as with adults, on the activation of a cortical circuit specialized in face-processing or is the cerebral cortex still effectively immature and does this circuit become functional only with experience and/or maturity?
The interdepartmental Center for Mind/Brain Sciences of the University of Trento has got down to work to answer this question. To discover the answer, a CIMeC research group coordinated by Giorgio Vallortigara, has set up a collaboration between the Pediatrics ward and the Obstetrics and Gynocology ward of Santa Maria del Carmine Hospital in Rovereto in order to study the face cortical activation in new-borns.
The results have just been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences scientific magazine: the article is entitled “Cortical route for facelike pattern processing in human newborns”
This research work is the outcome of a broad, interdisciplinary collaboration that has involved Marco Buiatti, Manuela Piazza and Giorgio Vallortigara from the University of Trento, Elisa Di Giorgio from the University of Padova and doctors Ermanno Baldo, Fabrizio Taddei, Carlo Polloni and Giuseppe Menna from the Santa Maria del Carmine Hospital. The research was partly financed by the Caritro Foundation.
The announcement by Marco Buiatti, the first author of the article is in the press release (in italian).