Predictive saccades in children and adults: A combined fMRI and eye tracking study

Saccades were assessed in 21 adults (age 24 years, SD = 4) and 15 children (age 11 years, SD = 1), using combined functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and eye-tracking. Subjects visually tracked a point on a horizontal line in four conditions: time and position predictable task (PRED), position predictable (pPRED), time predictable (tPRED) and visually guided saccades (SAC). Both groups in the PRED but not in pPRED, tPRED and SAC produced predictive saccades with latency below 80 ms. In task versus group comparisons, children’s showed less efficient learning compared to adults for predictive saccades (adults = 48%, children = 34%, p = 0.05). In adults brain activation was found in the frontal and occipital regions in the PRED, in the intraparietal sulcus in pPRED and in the frontal eye field, posterior intraparietal sulcus and medial regions in the tPRED task. Group–task interaction was found in the supplementary eye field and visual cortex in the PRED task, and the frontal cortex including the right frontal eye field and left frontal pole, in the pPRED condition. These results indicate that, the basic visuomotor circuitry is present in both adults and children, but fine-tuning of the activation according to the task temporal and spatial demand mature late in child development.