Early infancy is characterized by rapid brain development that occurs alongside, and in response to, the development of cognitive and behavioral functions, including attention. Infants’ ability to orient and sustain attention to stimuli develops in concert with refinement of the orienting network in frontoparietal regions of the brain. Infants (n = 97) underwent magnetic resonance imaging at one-month of age and data were fit to a diffusion tensor imaging model to calculate fractional anisotropy (FA) and radial diffusivity (RD), as well as to a neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging model to calculate intracellular volume fraction (ν_ic). Infant attention was assessed at six months of age using a dynamic puppet task (Cuevas and Bell, 2014). Infants with higher FA in the corpus callosum and anterior cingulum showed increased orienting behaviors. Our findings indicate that increased microstructure of the white matter tracts in the orienting network may play a role in the early neurodevelopment of attentional orienting behaviors.

婴儿早期的特点是大脑快速发育，伴随着认知和行为功能（包括注意力）的发展，并对其做出反应。婴儿定向和维持对刺激的注意力的能力的发展与大脑额顶叶区域定向网络的完善相一致。婴儿 (n = 97) 在一个月大时接受磁共振成像，并将数据拟合到扩散张量成像模型，以计算分数各向异性 (FA) 和径向扩散率 (RD)，以及神经突方向色散和密度用于计算细胞内体积分数 ( νic ₎的成像模型。使用动态木偶任务在六个月大时评估婴儿注意力（Cuevas 和 Bell，2014）。胼胝体和前扣带回 FA 较高的婴儿表现出定向行为增强。我们的研究结果表明，定向网络中白质束微观结构的增加可能在注意力定向行为的早期神经发育中发挥作用。