Impairments
in visual perception are among the most common developmental
difficulties related to being born prematurely, and they are often
accompanied by problems in other developmental domains. Neural
activation in participants born prematurely and full-term during tasks
that assess several areas of visual perception has not been studied. To
better understand the neural substrates of the visual perceptual
impairments, we compared behavioral performance and brain activations
during visual perception tasks in adolescents born very preterm (birth
weight ≤1500 g or gestational age <32 weeks) and full-term.

Tasks
assessing visual closure, discrimination of a deviating figure, and
discrimination of figure and ground from the Motor-Free Visual
Perception Test, Third Edition were performed by participants born very
preterm (n = 37) and full-term (n = 34) at 12 years of age during functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Behavioral
performance in the visual perception tasks did not differ between the
groups. However, during the visual closure task, brain activation was
significantly stronger in the group born very preterm in a number of
areas including the frontal, anterior cingulate, temporal, and posterior
medial parietal/cingulate cortices, as well as in parts of the
cerebellum, thalamus, and caudate nucleus.

Differing
activations during the visual closure task potentially reflect a
compensatory neural process related to premature birth or lesser neural
efficiency or may be a result of the use of compensatory behavioral
strategies in the study group born very preterm.