Developmental trajectories of symbolic and non- symbolic number processing: behavioral and brain-imaging studies Daniel Ansari Numerical Cognition Laboratory Department of Psychology & Program in Neuroscience University of Western Ontario College de France, Paris, March 11th 2008 Outline • Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience – Why study brain development? • Structural Development • Functional Development • The case of number – What can the study of functional brain development add? • Study of basic magnitude representation • Symbolic vs. non-symbolic • Mental arithmetic • Neural correlates of Developmental Dyscalculia • Conclusions & Future Challenges Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Structural Development Prenatal Brain Development Postnatal Brain Development Postnatal Brain Development from Casey et al. (2006) Postnatal Brain Development Decreases in Gray Matter Pruning Gogtay et al. (2004) Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Functional Development Functional Brain Development Casey et al. (2005) Functional Brain Development Turkeltaub et al. (2003)