The development of contour processing : evidence from physiology and psychophysics

Object perception and pattern vision depend fundamentally upon the extraction of contours from the visual environment. In adulthood, contour or edge-level processing is supported by the Gestalt heuristics of proximity, collinearity, and closure. Less is known, however, about the developmental trajectory of contour detection and contour integration. Within the physiology of the visual system, long-range horizontal connections in V1 and V2 are the likely candidates for implementing these heuristics. While post-mortem anatomical studies of human infants suggest that horizontal interconnections reach maturity by the second year of life, psychophysical research with infants and children suggests a considerably more protracted development. In the present review, data from infancy to adulthood will be discussed in order to track the development of contour detection and integration. The goal of this review is thus to integrate the development of contour detection and integration with research regarding the development of underlying neural circuitry.We conclude that the ontogeny of this system is best characterized as a developmentally extended period of associative acquisition whereby horizontal connectivity becomes functional over longer and longer distances, thus becoming able to effectively integrate over greater spans of visual space. Keywords

Deletion of exon 3 of the insulin receptor gene in a kindred with a familial form of insulin resistance

Molecular scanning techniques, such as denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE), greatly facilitate screening candidate genes for mutations. We have used DGGE to screen for mutations in the insulin receptor gene in a family in which four of five daughters were affected by type A insulin resistance in association with acanthosis nigricans and hyperandrogenism. DGGE did not detect mutations in any of the 22 exons of the insulin receptor gene. Nevertheless, Southern blot analysis suggested that there was a deletion of exon 3 in the other paternal allele of the insulin receptor gene. Analysis of the father's cDNA confirmed that exon 3 was deleted from mRNA molecules derived from one of his two alleles of the insulin receptor gene. Furthermore, the father was found to be hemizygous for a polymorphic sequence (GAC(Asp) at codon 234) in exon 3 that was not inherited by any of the five daughters. Instead, all five daughters inherited the paternal allele with the deletion mutation. We did not detect mutations in the mother's insulin receptor gene. Furthermore, the clinical syndrome did not segregate with either of the mother's two alleles of the insulin receptor gene. Although the youngest daughter inherited the mutant allele from her father, she was not clinically affected. The explanation for the incomplete penetrance is not known. These results emphasize the importance of specifically searching for deletion mutations when screening candidate genes for mutations. Furthermore, the existence of apparently asymptomatic carriers of mutations in the insulin receptor gene, such as the father in the present study, suggests that the prevalence of mutations in the insulin receptor gene may be higher than would be predicted on the basis of the observed prevalence of patients with extreme insulin resistance