Previous brain imaging studies have identified three brain regions that selectively respond to visual scenes, the parahippocampal place area (PPA), the occipital place area (OPA), and the retrosplenial cortex (RSC). There is growing evidence that these visual scene-sensitive regions process different types of scene information and may have different developmental timelines in supporting scene perception. How these scene-sensitive regions support memory functions during child development is largely unknown. We investigated PPA, OPA and RSC activations associated with episodic memory formation in childhood (5–7 years of age) and young adulthood, using a subsequent scene memory paradigm and a functional localizer for scenes. PPA, OPA, and RSC subsequent memory activation and functional connectivity differed between children and adults. Subsequent memory effects were found in activations of all three scene regions in adults. In children, however, robust subsequent memory effects were only found in the PPA. Functional connectivity during successful encoding was significant among the three regions in adults, but not in children. PPA subsequently memory activations and PPA-RSC subsequent memory functional connectivity correlated with accuracy in adults, but not children. These age-related differences add new evidence linking protracted development of the scene-sensitive regions to the protracted development of episodic memory.

先前的脑成像研究已经确定了对视觉场景有选择性反应的三个大脑区域：海马旁区域（PPA）、枕叶区域（OPA）和压后皮质（RSC）。越来越多的证据表明，这些视觉场景敏感区域处理不同类型的场景信息，并且在支持场景感知方面可能具有不同的发育时间表。这些场景敏感区域如何支持儿童发育过程中的记忆功能尚不清楚。我们使用后续场景记忆范式和场景功能定位器，研究了与童年（5-7 岁）和成年早期情景记忆形成相关的 PPA、OPA 和 RSC 激活。PPA、OPA 和 RSC 随后的记忆激活和功能连接在儿童和成人之间存在差异。在成人所有三个场景区域的激活中都发现了随后的记忆效应。然而，在儿童中，仅在 PPA 中发现了强烈的后续记忆效应。成功编码过程中的功能连接在成人的三个区域中很重要，但在儿童中则不然。PPA 随后的记忆激活和 PPA-RSC 随后的记忆功能连接与成人的准确性相关，但与儿童的准确性无关。这些与年龄相关的差异提供了新的证据，将场景敏感区域的长期发展与情景记忆的长期发展联系起来。