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Tang X, Turesky TK, Escalante ES, Loh MY, Xia M, Yu X, Gaab N. Longitudinal associations between language network characteristics in the infant brain and school-age reading abilities are mediated by early-developing phonological skills. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2023.06.22.546194. [PMID: 38895379 PMCID: PMC11185523 DOI: 10.1101/2023.06.22.546194] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/21/2024]
Abstract
Reading acquisition is a prolonged learning process relying on language development starting in utero. Behavioral longitudinal studies reveal prospective associations between infant language abilities and preschool/kindergarten phonological development that relates to subsequent reading performance. While recent pediatric neuroimaging work has begun to characterize the neural network underlying language development in infants, how this neural network scaffolds long-term language and reading acquisition remains unknown. We addressed this question in a 7-year longitudinal study from infancy to school-age. Seventy-six infants completed resting-state fMRI scanning, and underwent standardized language assessments in kindergarten. Of this larger cohort, forty-one were further assessed on their emergent word reading abilities after receiving formal reading instructions. Hierarchical clustering analyses identified a modular infant language network in which functional connectivity (FC) of the inferior frontal module prospectively correlated with kindergarten-age phonological skills and emergent word reading abilities. These correlations were obtained when controlling for infant age at scan, nonverbal IQ and parental education. Furthermore, kindergarten-age phonological skills mediated the relationship between infant FC and school-age reading abilities, implying a critical mid-way milestone for long-term reading development from infancy. Overall, our findings illuminate the neurobiological mechanisms by which infant language capacities could scaffold long-term reading acquisition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xinyi Tang
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China, 100875
| | - Ted K. Turesky
- Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, 02138
| | - Elizabeth S. Escalante
- Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, 02138
| | - Megan Yf Loh
- Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, 02138
| | - Mingrui Xia
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China, 100875
| | - Xi Yu
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China, 100875
| | - Nadine Gaab
- Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, 02138
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Tang X, Turesky TK, Escalante ES, Loh MY, Xia M, Yu X, Gaab N. Longitudinal associations between language network characteristics in the infant brain and school-age reading abilities are mediated by early-developing phonological skills. Dev Cogn Neurosci 2024; 68:101405. [PMID: 38875769 PMCID: PMC11225703 DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2024.101405] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/23/2023] [Revised: 04/30/2024] [Accepted: 06/06/2024] [Indexed: 06/16/2024] Open
Abstract
Reading acquisition is a prolonged learning process relying on language development starting in utero. Behavioral longitudinal studies reveal prospective associations between infant language abilities and preschool/kindergarten phonological development that relates to subsequent reading performance. While recent pediatric neuroimaging work has begun to characterize the neural network underlying language development in infants, how this neural network scaffolds long-term language and reading acquisition remains unknown. We addressed this question in a 7-year longitudinal study from infancy to school-age. Seventy-six infants completed resting-state fMRI scanning, and underwent standardized language assessments in kindergarten. Of this larger cohort, forty-one were further assessed on their emergent word reading abilities after receiving formal reading instructions. Hierarchical clustering analyses identified a modular infant language network in which functional connectivity (FC) of the inferior frontal module prospectively correlated with kindergarten-age phonological skills and emergent word reading abilities. These correlations were obtained when controlling for infant age at scan, nonverbal IQ and parental education. Furthermore, kindergarten-age phonological skills mediated the relationship between infant FC and school-age reading abilities, implying a critical mid-way milestone for long-term reading development from infancy. Overall, our findings illuminate the neurobiological mechanisms by which infant language capacities could scaffold long-term reading acquisition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xinyi Tang
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
| | - Ted K Turesky
- Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Elizabeth S Escalante
- Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA; Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27514, USA
| | - Megan Yf Loh
- Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Mingrui Xia
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
| | - Xi Yu
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
| | - Nadine Gaab
- Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
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Cusack R, Ranzato M, Charvet CJ. Helpless infants are learning a foundation model. Trends Cogn Sci 2024:S1364-6613(24)00114-1. [PMID: 38839537 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2024.05.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/12/2023] [Revised: 04/24/2024] [Accepted: 05/03/2024] [Indexed: 06/07/2024]
Abstract
Humans have a protracted postnatal helplessness period, typically attributed to human-specific maternal constraints causing an early birth when the brain is highly immature. By aligning neurodevelopmental events across species, however, it has been found that humans are not born with especially immature brains compared with animal species with a shorter helpless period. Consistent with this, the rapidly growing field of infant neuroimaging has found that brain connectivity and functional activation at birth share many similarities with the mature brain. Inspired by machine learning, where deep neural networks also benefit from a 'helpless period' of pre-training, we propose that human infants are learning a foundation model: a set of fundamental representations that underpin later cognition with high performance and rapid generalisation.
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Harford EE, Holt LL, Abel TJ. Unveiling the development of human voice perception: Neurobiological mechanisms and pathophysiology. CURRENT RESEARCH IN NEUROBIOLOGY 2024; 6:100127. [PMID: 38511174 PMCID: PMC10950757 DOI: 10.1016/j.crneur.2024.100127] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/06/2023] [Revised: 02/22/2024] [Accepted: 02/26/2024] [Indexed: 03/22/2024] Open
Abstract
The human voice is a critical stimulus for the auditory system that promotes social connection, informs the listener about identity and emotion, and acts as the carrier for spoken language. Research on voice processing in adults has informed our understanding of the unique status of the human voice in the mature auditory cortex and provided potential explanations for mechanisms that underly voice selectivity and identity processing. There is evidence that voice perception undergoes developmental change starting in infancy and extending through early adolescence. While even young infants recognize the voice of their mother, there is an apparent protracted course of development to reach adult-like selectivity for human voice over other sound categories and recognition of other talkers by voice. Gaps in the literature do not allow for an exact mapping of this trajectory or an adequate description of how voice processing and its neural underpinnings abilities evolve. This review provides a comprehensive account of developmental voice processing research published to date and discusses how this evidence fits with and contributes to current theoretical models proposed in the adult literature. We discuss how factors such as cognitive development, neural plasticity, perceptual narrowing, and language acquisition may contribute to the development of voice processing and its investigation in children. We also review evidence of voice processing abilities in premature birth, autism spectrum disorder, and phonagnosia to examine where and how deviations from the typical trajectory of development may manifest.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emily E. Harford
- Department of Neurological Surgery, University of Pittsburgh, USA
| | - Lori L. Holt
- Department of Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin, USA
| | - Taylor J. Abel
- Department of Neurological Surgery, University of Pittsburgh, USA
- Department of Bioengineering, University of Pittsburgh, USA
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5
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Saksida A, Langus A. Object labeling and disambiguation in 4-month-old infants. Child Dev 2024; 95:462-480. [PMID: 37587752 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13993] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/13/2022] [Revised: 07/06/2023] [Accepted: 07/23/2023] [Indexed: 08/18/2023]
Abstract
The account that word learning starts in earnest during the second year of life, when infants have mastered the disambiguation skills, has recently been challenged by evidence that infants during the first year already know many common words. The preliminary ability to rapidly map and disambiguate linguistic labels was tested in Italian-speaking infants (N = 96, 47 boys; age = 4 and 6 months, eye tracking). Infants can rapidly map linguistic labels to objects and movements, and disambiguate the intended referents to novel words, but they fail with sinewave analogs. In hearing infants, mapping and disambiguation emerge early in development, and are flexible as to which visual referents infants are willing to map to linguistic labels, but may be constrained to linguistic sounds.
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Affiliation(s)
- Amanda Saksida
- Institute for Maternal and Child Health-IRCCS "Burlo Garofolo"-Trieste, Trieste, Italy
| | - Alan Langus
- Cognitive Sciences, Department of Linguistics, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
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Sarzedas J, Lima CF, Roberto MS, Scott SK, Pinheiro AP, Conde T. Blindness influences emotional authenticity perception in voices: Behavioral and ERP evidence. Cortex 2024; 172:254-270. [PMID: 38123404 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2023.11.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/15/2023] [Revised: 10/31/2023] [Accepted: 11/10/2023] [Indexed: 12/23/2023]
Abstract
The ability to distinguish spontaneous from volitional emotional expressions is an important social skill. How do blind individuals perceive emotional authenticity? Unlike sighted individuals, they cannot rely on facial and body language cues, relying instead on vocal cues alone. Here, we combined behavioral and ERP measures to investigate authenticity perception in laughter and crying in individuals with early- or late-blindness onset. Early-blind, late-blind, and sighted control participants (n = 17 per group, N = 51) completed authenticity and emotion discrimination tasks while EEG data were recorded. The stimuli consisted of laughs and cries that were either spontaneous or volitional. The ERP analysis focused on the N1, P2, and late positive potential (LPP). Behaviorally, early-blind participants showed intact authenticity perception, but late-blind participants performed worse than controls. There were no group differences in the emotion discrimination task. In brain responses, all groups were sensitive to laughter authenticity at the P2 stage, and to crying authenticity at the early LPP stage. Nevertheless, only early-blind participants were sensitive to crying authenticity at the N1 and middle LPP stages, and to laughter authenticity at the early LPP stage. Furthermore, early-blind and sighted participants were more sensitive than late-blind ones to crying authenticity at the P2 and late LPP stages. Altogether, these findings suggest that early blindness relates to facilitated brain processing of authenticity in voices, both at early sensory and late cognitive-evaluative stages. Late-onset blindness, in contrast, relates to decreased sensitivity to authenticity at behavioral and brain levels.
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Affiliation(s)
- João Sarzedas
- CICPSI, Faculdade de Psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal
| | - César F Lima
- Centro de Investigação e Intervenção Social (CIS-IUL), Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Lisboa, Portugal; Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK
| | - Magda S Roberto
- CICPSI, Faculdade de Psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal
| | - Sophie K Scott
- Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK
| | - Ana P Pinheiro
- CICPSI, Faculdade de Psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal.
| | - Tatiana Conde
- CICPSI, Faculdade de Psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal.
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Kosakowski HL, Norman-Haignere S, Mynick A, Takahashi A, Saxe R, Kanwisher N. Preliminary evidence for selective cortical responses to music in one-month-old infants. Dev Sci 2023; 26:e13387. [PMID: 36951215 DOI: 10.1111/desc.13387] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/13/2022] [Revised: 02/17/2023] [Accepted: 02/21/2023] [Indexed: 03/24/2023]
Abstract
Prior studies have observed selective neural responses in the adult human auditory cortex to music and speech that cannot be explained by the differing lower-level acoustic properties of these stimuli. Does infant cortex exhibit similarly selective responses to music and speech shortly after birth? To answer this question, we attempted to collect functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from 45 sleeping infants (2.0- to 11.9-weeks-old) while they listened to monophonic instrumental lullabies and infant-directed speech produced by a mother. To match acoustic variation between music and speech sounds we (1) recorded music from instruments that had a similar spectral range as female infant-directed speech, (2) used a novel excitation-matching algorithm to match the cochleagrams of music and speech stimuli, and (3) synthesized "model-matched" stimuli that were matched in spectrotemporal modulation statistics to (yet perceptually distinct from) music or speech. Of the 36 infants we collected usable data from, 19 had significant activations to sounds overall compared to scanner noise. From these infants, we observed a set of voxels in non-primary auditory cortex (NPAC) but not in Heschl's Gyrus that responded significantly more to music than to each of the other three stimulus types (but not significantly more strongly than to the background scanner noise). In contrast, our planned analyses did not reveal voxels in NPAC that responded more to speech than to model-matched speech, although other unplanned analyses did. These preliminary findings suggest that music selectivity arises within the first month of life. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/c8IGFvzxudk. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Responses to music, speech, and control sounds matched for the spectrotemporal modulation-statistics of each sound were measured from 2- to 11-week-old sleeping infants using fMRI. Auditory cortex was significantly activated by these stimuli in 19 out of 36 sleeping infants. Selective responses to music compared to the three other stimulus classes were found in non-primary auditory cortex but not in nearby Heschl's Gyrus. Selective responses to speech were not observed in planned analyses but were observed in unplanned, exploratory analyses.
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Affiliation(s)
- Heather L Kosakowski
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute, of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
- Center for Brains, Minds and Machines, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
| | | | - Anna Mynick
- Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hannover, New Hampshire, USA
| | - Atsushi Takahashi
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute, of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
| | - Rebecca Saxe
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute, of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
- Center for Brains, Minds and Machines, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
| | - Nancy Kanwisher
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute, of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
- Center for Brains, Minds and Machines, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
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8
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Fenn-Moltu S, Fitzgibbon SP, Ciarrusta J, Eyre M, Cordero-Grande L, Chew A, Falconer S, Gale-Grant O, Harper N, Dimitrova R, Vecchiato K, Fenchel D, Javed A, Earl M, Price AN, Hughes E, Duff EP, O’Muircheartaigh J, Nosarti C, Arichi T, Rueckert D, Counsell S, Hajnal JV, Edwards AD, McAlonan G, Batalle D. Development of neonatal brain functional centrality and alterations associated with preterm birth. Cereb Cortex 2023; 33:5585-5596. [PMID: 36408638 PMCID: PMC10152096 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhac444] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/02/2022] [Revised: 09/21/2022] [Accepted: 10/11/2022] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Formation of the functional connectome in early life underpins future learning and behavior. However, our understanding of how the functional organization of brain regions into interconnected hubs (centrality) matures in the early postnatal period is limited, especially in response to factors associated with adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes such as preterm birth. We characterized voxel-wise functional centrality (weighted degree) in 366 neonates from the Developing Human Connectome Project. We tested the hypothesis that functional centrality matures with age at scan in term-born babies and is disrupted by preterm birth. Finally, we asked whether neonatal functional centrality predicts general neurodevelopmental outcomes at 18 months. We report an age-related increase in functional centrality predominantly within visual regions and a decrease within the motor and auditory regions in term-born infants. Preterm-born infants scanned at term equivalent age had higher functional centrality predominantly within visual regions and lower measures in motor regions. Functional centrality was not related to outcome at 18 months old. Thus, preterm birth appears to affect functional centrality in regions undergoing substantial development during the perinatal period. Our work raises the question of whether these alterations are adaptive or disruptive and whether they predict neurodevelopmental characteristics that are more subtle or emerge later in life.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sunniva Fenn-Moltu
- Department of Forensic and Neurodevelopmental Sciences, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, SE5 8AF, United Kingdom
- Centre for the Developing Brain, School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, SE1 7EH, United Kingdom
| | - Sean P Fitzgibbon
- Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging (WIN FMRIB), University of Oxford, Oxford, OX3 9DU, United Kingdom
| | - Judit Ciarrusta
- Department of Forensic and Neurodevelopmental Sciences, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, SE5 8AF, United Kingdom
- Centre for the Developing Brain, School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, SE1 7EH, United Kingdom
| | - Michael Eyre
- Centre for the Developing Brain, School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, SE1 7EH, United Kingdom
| | - Lucilio Cordero-Grande
- Centre for the Developing Brain, School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, SE1 7EH, United Kingdom
- Biomedical Image Technologies, ETSI Telecomunicación, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid & CIBER-BBN, Madrid, 28040, Spain
| | - Andrew Chew
- Centre for the Developing Brain, School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, SE1 7EH, United Kingdom
| | - Shona Falconer
- Centre for the Developing Brain, School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, SE1 7EH, United Kingdom
| | - Oliver Gale-Grant
- Department of Forensic and Neurodevelopmental Sciences, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, SE5 8AF, United Kingdom
- Centre for the Developing Brain, School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, SE1 7EH, United Kingdom
- MRC Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders, King’s College London, London, SE1 1UL, United Kingdom
| | - Nicholas Harper
- Centre for the Developing Brain, School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, SE1 7EH, United Kingdom
| | - Ralica Dimitrova
- Department of Forensic and Neurodevelopmental Sciences, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, SE5 8AF, United Kingdom
- Centre for the Developing Brain, School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, SE1 7EH, United Kingdom
| | - Katy Vecchiato
- Department of Forensic and Neurodevelopmental Sciences, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, SE5 8AF, United Kingdom
- Centre for the Developing Brain, School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, SE1 7EH, United Kingdom
| | - Daphna Fenchel
- Department of Forensic and Neurodevelopmental Sciences, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, SE5 8AF, United Kingdom
- Centre for the Developing Brain, School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, SE1 7EH, United Kingdom
- MRC Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders, King’s College London, London, SE1 1UL, United Kingdom
| | - Ayesha Javed
- Department of Forensic and Neurodevelopmental Sciences, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, SE5 8AF, United Kingdom
- Centre for the Developing Brain, School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, SE1 7EH, United Kingdom
| | - Megan Earl
- Department of Forensic and Neurodevelopmental Sciences, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, SE5 8AF, United Kingdom
- Centre for the Developing Brain, School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, SE1 7EH, United Kingdom
- Paediatric Liver, GI and Nutrition Centre and MowatLabs, King’s College London, London, SE5 9RS, United Kingdom
| | - Anthony N Price
- Centre for the Developing Brain, School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, SE1 7EH, United Kingdom
| | - Emer Hughes
- Centre for the Developing Brain, School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, SE1 7EH, United Kingdom
| | - Eugene P Duff
- Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging (WIN FMRIB), University of Oxford, Oxford, OX3 9DU, United Kingdom
- Department of Paediatrics, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX3 9DU, United Kingdom
| | - Jonathan O’Muircheartaigh
- Department of Forensic and Neurodevelopmental Sciences, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, SE5 8AF, United Kingdom
- Centre for the Developing Brain, School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, SE1 7EH, United Kingdom
- MRC Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders, King’s College London, London, SE1 1UL, United Kingdom
| | - Chiara Nosarti
- Centre for the Developing Brain, School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, SE1 7EH, United Kingdom
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, SE5 8AF, United Kingdom
| | - Tomoki Arichi
- Centre for the Developing Brain, School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, SE1 7EH, United Kingdom
- MRC Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders, King’s College London, London, SE1 1UL, United Kingdom
- Paediatric Neurosciences, Evelina London Children’s Hospital, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, London, SE1 7EH, United Kingdom
- Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London, London, SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom
| | - Daniel Rueckert
- Biomedical Image Analysis Group, Imperial College London, London, SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom
- Institute for AI and Informatics in Medicine, Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technical University of Munich, Munich, 81675, Germany
| | - Serena Counsell
- Centre for the Developing Brain, School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, SE1 7EH, United Kingdom
| | - Joseph V Hajnal
- Centre for the Developing Brain, School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, SE1 7EH, United Kingdom
| | - A David Edwards
- Centre for the Developing Brain, School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, SE1 7EH, United Kingdom
- MRC Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders, King’s College London, London, SE1 1UL, United Kingdom
| | - Grainne McAlonan
- Department of Forensic and Neurodevelopmental Sciences, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, SE5 8AF, United Kingdom
- MRC Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders, King’s College London, London, SE1 1UL, United Kingdom
| | - Dafnis Batalle
- Department of Forensic and Neurodevelopmental Sciences, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, SE5 8AF, United Kingdom
- Centre for the Developing Brain, School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, SE1 7EH, United Kingdom
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9
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Huber E, Corrigan NM, Yarnykh VL, Ferjan Ramírez N, Kuhl PK. Language Experience during Infancy Predicts White Matter Myelination at Age 2 Years. J Neurosci 2023; 43:1590-1599. [PMID: 36746626 PMCID: PMC10008053 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.1043-22.2023] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/31/2022] [Revised: 01/06/2023] [Accepted: 01/06/2023] [Indexed: 02/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Parental input is considered a key predictor of language achievement during the first years of life, yet relatively few studies have assessed the effects of parental language input and parent-infant interactions on early brain development. We examined the relationship between measures of parent and child language, obtained from naturalistic home recordings at child ages 6, 10, 14, 18, and 24 months, and estimates of white matter myelination, derived from quantitative MRI at age 2 years (mean = 26.30 months, SD = 1.62, N = 22). Analysis of the white matter focused on dorsal pathways associated with expressive language development and long-term language ability, namely, the left arcuate fasciculus (AF) and superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF). Frequency of parent-infant conversational turns (CT) uniquely predicted myelin density estimates in both the AF and SLF. Moreover, the effect of CT remained significant while controlling for total adult speech and child speech-related utterances, suggesting a specific role for interactive language experience, rather than simply speech exposure or production. An exploratory analysis of 18 additional tracts, including the right AF and SLF, indicated a high degree of anatomic specificity. Longitudinal analyses of parent and child language variables indicated an effect of CT as early as 6 months of age, as well as an ongoing effect over infancy. Together, these results link parent-infant conversational turns to white matter myelination at age 2 years, and suggest that early, interactive experiences with language uniquely contribute to the development of white matter associated with long-term language ability.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Children's earliest experiences with language are thought to have profound and lasting developmental effects. Recent studies suggest that intervention can increase the quality of parental language input and improve children's learning outcomes. However, important questions remain about the optimal timing of intervention, and the relationship between specific aspects of language experience and brain development. We report that parent-infant turn-taking during home language interactions correlates with myelination of language related white matter pathways through age 2 years. Effects were independent of total speech exposure and infant vocalizations and evident starting at 6 months of age, suggesting that structured language interactions throughout infancy may uniquely support the ongoing development of brain systems critical to long-term language ability.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elizabeth Huber
- Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195
- Department of Speech & Hearing Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195
| | - Neva M Corrigan
- Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195
- Department of Speech & Hearing Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195
| | - Vasily L Yarnykh
- Department of Radiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195
| | - Naja Ferjan Ramírez
- Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195
- Department of Linguistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195
| | - Patricia K Kuhl
- Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195
- Department of Speech & Hearing Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195
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10
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Preterm neonates distinguish rhythm violation through a hierarchy of cortical processing. Dev Cogn Neurosci 2022; 58:101168. [PMID: 36335806 PMCID: PMC9638730 DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2022.101168] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/02/2021] [Revised: 09/29/2022] [Accepted: 10/27/2022] [Indexed: 01/13/2023] Open
Abstract
Rhythm is a fundamental component of the auditory world, present even during the prenatal life. While there is evidence that some auditory capacities are already present before birth, whether and how the premature neural networks process auditory rhythm is yet not known. We investigated the neural response of premature neonates at 30-34 weeks gestational age to violations from rhythmic regularities in an auditory sequence using high-resolution electroencephalography and event-related potentials. Unpredicted rhythm violations elicited a fronto-central mismatch response, indicating that the premature neonates detected the rhythmic regularities. Next, we examined the cortical effective connectivity underlying the elicited mismatch response using dynamic causal modeling. We examined the connectivity between cortical sources using a set of 16 generative models that embedded alternate hypotheses about the role of the frontal cortex as well as backward fronto-temporal connection. Our results demonstrated that the processing of rhythm violations was not limited to the primary auditory areas, and as in the case of adults, encompassed a hierarchy of temporo-frontal cortical structures. The result also emphasized the importance of top-down (backward) projections from the frontal cortex in explaining the mismatch response. Our findings demonstrate a sophisticated cortical structure underlying predictive rhythm processing at the onset of the thalamocortical and cortico-cortical circuits, two months before term.
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11
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Scheinost D, Chang J, Lacadie C, Brennan-Wydra E, Constable RT, Chawarska K, Ment LR. Functional connectivity for the language network in the developing brain: 30 weeks of gestation to 30 months of age. Cereb Cortex 2022; 32:3289-3301. [PMID: 34875024 PMCID: PMC9340393 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhab415] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/31/2021] [Revised: 09/20/2021] [Accepted: 10/12/2021] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Although the neural scaffolding for language is putatively present before birth, the maturation of functional connections among the key nodes of the language network, Broca's and Wernicke's areas, is less known. We leveraged longitudinal and cross-sectional data from three sites collected through six studies to track the development of functional circuits between Broca's and Wernicke's areas from 30 weeks of gestation through 30 months of age in 127 unique participants. Using resting-state fMRI data, functional connectivity was calculated as the correlation between fMRI time courses from pairs of regions, defined as Broca's and Wernicke's in both hemispheres. The primary analysis evaluated 23 individuals longitudinally imaged from 30 weeks postmenstrual age (fetal) through the first postnatal month (neonatal). A secondary analysis in 127 individuals extended these curves into older infants and toddlers. These data demonstrated significant growth of interhemispheric connections including left Broca's and its homolog and left Wernicke's and its homolog from 30 weeks of gestation through the first postnatal month. In contrast, intrahemispheric connections did not show significant increases across this period. These data represent an important baseline for language systems in the developing brain against which to compare those neurobehavioral disorders with the potential fetal onset of disease.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dustin Scheinost
- Department of Radiology & Biomedical Imaging, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
- Department of Statistics & Data Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
- Child Study Center, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA
| | - Joseph Chang
- Department of Statistics & Data Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
| | - Cheryl Lacadie
- Department of Radiology & Biomedical Imaging, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA
| | | | - R Todd Constable
- Department of Radiology & Biomedical Imaging, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
- Department of Neurosurgery, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA
| | - Katarzyna Chawarska
- Department of Statistics & Data Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
- Child Study Center, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA
- Department of Pediatrics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA
| | - Laura R Ment
- Department of Pediatrics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA
- Department of Neurology, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA
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12
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Wu YJ, Hou X, Peng C, Yu W, Oppenheim GM, Thierry G, Zhang D. Rapid learning of a phonemic discrimination in the first hours of life. Nat Hum Behav 2022; 6:1169-1179. [PMID: 35654965 PMCID: PMC9391223 DOI: 10.1038/s41562-022-01355-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/24/2021] [Accepted: 04/20/2022] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
Human neonates can discriminate phonemes, but the neural mechanism underlying this ability is poorly understood. Here we show that the neonatal brain can learn to discriminate natural vowels from backward vowels, a contrast unlikely to have been learnt in the womb. Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy, we examined the neuroplastic changes caused by 5 h of postnatal exposure to random sequences of natural and reversed (backward) vowels (T1), and again 2 h later (T2). Neonates in the experimental group were trained with the same stimuli as those used at T1 and T2. Compared with controls, infants in the experimental group showed shorter haemodynamic response latencies for forward vs backward vowels at T1, maximally over the inferior frontal region. At T2, neural activity differentially increased, maximally over superior temporal regions and the left inferior parietal region. Neonates thus exhibit ultra-fast tuning to natural phonemes in the first hours after birth.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yan Jing Wu
- Faculty of Foreign Languages, Ningbo University, Ningbo, China
| | - Xinlin Hou
- Department of Pediatrics, Peking University First Hospital, Beijing, China
| | - Cheng Peng
- Department of Pediatrics, Peking University First Hospital, Beijing, China
| | - Wenwen Yu
- School of Psychology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China
| | | | - Guillaume Thierry
- School of Psychology, Bangor University, Bangor, Wales, UK.,Faculty of English, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
| | - Dandan Zhang
- School of Psychology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China. .,Institute of Brain and Psychological Sciences, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu, China. .,Shenzhen-Hong Kong Institute of Brain Science, Shenzhen, China.
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13
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Sakakura K, Sonoda M, Mitsuhashi T, Kuroda N, Firestone E, O'Hara N, Iwaki H, Lee MH, Jeong JW, Rothermel R, Luat AF, Asano E. Developmental organization of neural dynamics supporting auditory perception. Neuroimage 2022; 258:119342. [PMID: 35654375 PMCID: PMC9354710 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119342] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/17/2022] [Revised: 05/09/2022] [Accepted: 05/29/2022] [Indexed: 11/28/2022] Open
Abstract
Purpose: A prominent view of language acquisition involves learning to ignore irrelevant auditory signals through functional reorganization, enabling more efficient processing of relevant information. Yet, few studies have characterized the neural spatiotemporal dynamics supporting rapid detection and subsequent disregard of irrelevant auditory information, in the developing brain. To address this unknown, the present study modeled the developmental acquisition of cost-efficient neural dynamics for auditory processing, using intracranial electrocorticographic responses measured in individuals receiving standard-of-care treatment for drug-resistant, focal epilepsy. We also provided evidence demonstrating the maturation of an anterior-to-posterior functional division within the superior-temporal gyrus (STG), which is known to exist in the adult STG. Methods: We studied 32 patients undergoing extraoperative electrocorticography (age range: eight months to 28 years) and analyzed 2,039 intracranial electrode sites outside the seizure onset zone, interictal spike-generating areas, and MRI lesions. Patients were given forward (normal) speech sounds, backward-played speech sounds, and signal-correlated noises during a task-free condition. We then quantified sound processing-related neural costs at given time windows using high-gamma amplitude at 70–110 Hz and animated the group-level high-gamma dynamics on a spatially normalized three-dimensional brain surface. Finally, we determined if age independently contributed to high-gamma dynamics across brain regions and time windows. Results: Group-level analysis of noise-related neural costs in the STG revealed developmental enhancement of early high-gamma augmentation and diminution of delayed augmentation. Analysis of speech-related high-gamma activity demonstrated an anterior-to-posterior functional parcellation in the STG. The left anterior STG showed sustained augmentation throughout stimulus presentation, whereas the left posterior STG showed transient augmentation after stimulus onset. We found a double dissociation between the locations and developmental changes in speech sound-related high-gamma dynamics. Early left anterior STG high-gamma augmentation (i.e., within 200 ms post-stimulus onset) showed developmental enhancement, whereas delayed left posterior STG high-gamma augmentation declined with development. Conclusions: Our observations support the model that, with age, the human STG refines neural dynamics to rapidly detect and subsequently disregard uninformative acoustic noises. Our study also supports the notion that the anterior-to-posterior functional division within the left STG is gradually strengthened for efficient speech sound perception after birth.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kazuki Sakakura
- Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital of Michigan, Detroit Medical Center, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 48201, USA.; Department of Neurosurgery, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, 3058575, Japan
| | - Masaki Sonoda
- Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital of Michigan, Detroit Medical Center, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 48201, USA.; Department of Neurosurgery, Yokohama City University, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 2360004, Japan
| | - Takumi Mitsuhashi
- Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital of Michigan, Detroit Medical Center, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 48201, USA.; Department of Neurosurgery, Juntendo University, School of Medicine, Tokyo, 1138421, Japan
| | - Naoto Kuroda
- Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital of Michigan, Detroit Medical Center, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 48201, USA.; Department of Epileptology, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, 9808575, Japan
| | - Ethan Firestone
- Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital of Michigan, Detroit Medical Center, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 48201, USA.; Department of Physiology, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48201, USA
| | - Nolan O'Hara
- Translational Neuroscience Program, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 48201, USA
| | - Hirotaka Iwaki
- Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital of Michigan, Detroit Medical Center, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 48201, USA.; Department of Epileptology, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, 9808575, Japan
| | - Min-Hee Lee
- Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital of Michigan, Detroit Medical Center, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 48201, USA
| | - Jeong-Won Jeong
- Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital of Michigan, Detroit Medical Center, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 48201, USA.; Department of Neurology, Children's Hospital of Michigan, Detroit Medical Center, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 48201, USA.; Translational Neuroscience Program, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 48201, USA
| | - Robert Rothermel
- Department of Psychiatry, Children's Hospital of Michigan, Detroit Medical Center, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 48201, USA
| | - Aimee F Luat
- Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital of Michigan, Detroit Medical Center, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 48201, USA.; Department of Neurology, Children's Hospital of Michigan, Detroit Medical Center, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 48201, USA.; Department of Pediatrics, Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, MI 48858, USA
| | - Eishi Asano
- Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital of Michigan, Detroit Medical Center, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 48201, USA.; Department of Neurology, Children's Hospital of Michigan, Detroit Medical Center, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 48201, USA.; Translational Neuroscience Program, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 48201, USA..
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Developmental changes in the brain response to speech during the first year of life: A near-infrared spectroscopy study of dutch-learning infants. Infant Behav Dev 2022; 67:101724. [DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2022.101724] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/08/2021] [Revised: 05/13/2022] [Accepted: 05/13/2022] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
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15
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Saksida A, Ghiselli S, Picinali L, Pintonello S, Battelino S, Orzan E. Attention to Speech and Music in Young Children with Bilateral Cochlear Implants: A Pupillometry Study. J Clin Med 2022; 11:jcm11061745. [PMID: 35330071 PMCID: PMC8956090 DOI: 10.3390/jcm11061745] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/21/2022] [Revised: 03/05/2022] [Accepted: 03/16/2022] [Indexed: 12/10/2022] Open
Abstract
Early bilateral cochlear implants (CIs) may enhance attention to speech, and reduce cognitive load in noisy environments. However, it is sometimes difficult to measure speech perception and listening effort, especially in very young children. Behavioral measures cannot always be obtained in young/uncooperative children, whereas objective measures are either difficult to assess or do not reliably correlate with behavioral measures. Recent studies have thus explored pupillometry as a possible objective measure. Here, pupillometry is introduced to assess attention to speech and music in noise in very young children with bilateral CIs (N = 14, age: 17–47 months), and in the age-matched group of normally-hearing (NH) children (N = 14, age: 22–48 months). The results show that the response to speech was affected by the presence of background noise only in children with CIs, but not NH children. Conversely, the presence of background noise altered pupil response to music only in in NH children. We conclude that whereas speech and music may receive comparable attention in comparable listening conditions, in young children with CIs, controlling for background noise affects attention to speech and speech processing more than in NH children. Potential implementations of the results for rehabilitation procedures are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Amanda Saksida
- Institute for Maternal and Child Health—IRCCS “Burlo Garofolo”—Trieste, 34137 Trieste, Italy; (S.P.); (E.O.)
- Correspondence:
| | - Sara Ghiselli
- Ospedale Guglielmo da Saliceto, 29121 Piacenza, Italy;
| | - Lorenzo Picinali
- Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College London, London SW7 2DB, UK;
| | - Sara Pintonello
- Institute for Maternal and Child Health—IRCCS “Burlo Garofolo”—Trieste, 34137 Trieste, Italy; (S.P.); (E.O.)
| | - Saba Battelino
- Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana, University Medical Centre Ljubljana, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia;
| | - Eva Orzan
- Institute for Maternal and Child Health—IRCCS “Burlo Garofolo”—Trieste, 34137 Trieste, Italy; (S.P.); (E.O.)
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Giordano V, Alexopoulos J, Spagna A, Benavides-Varela S, Peganc K, Kothgassner OD, Klebermass-Schrehof K, Olischar M, Berger A, Bartha-Doering L. Accent discrimination abilities during the first days of life: An fNIRS study. BRAIN AND LANGUAGE 2021; 223:105039. [PMID: 34678622 DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2021.105039] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/22/2020] [Revised: 09/22/2021] [Accepted: 09/29/2021] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
Humans are biologically endowed with the faculty of language. However, the way neonates can crack this complex communicative code is yet not totally understood. While phonetic discrimination has been widely investigated in neonates, less is known about the role of supra-segments patterns in the recognition of native language. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate accent discrimination abilities in newborns in a sentential prosody paradigm. We used near-infared spectroscopy to investigate accent discrimination in 21 full-term born infants within the first days of life. Sentential prosody was used to investigate: (a) native accent, (b) foreign accent, and (c) flattened accent. Neonates revealed a significantly smaller hemodynamic response to native accent compared to flattened accent and foreign accent, respectively. Cluster-based permutation analysis revealed two clusters with a significant difference between the two conditions native accent and foreign accent. The first cluster covered the middle and superior frontal, middle and superior temporal, central, and parietal areas within the left hemisphere. The second cluster, located in the right hemisphere, covered inferior, middle, and superior frontal, central, middle and superior temporal areas. We therefore conclude that neonates can differentiate prosodic features like accents within the same language a few days after birth.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vito Giordano
- Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Comprehensive Center for Pediatrics, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
| | - Johanna Alexopoulos
- Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Comprehensive Center for Pediatrics, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria; Department of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Alfredo Spagna
- Department of Psychology, Columbia University, NY 10027, USA
| | - Silvia Benavides-Varela
- Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization & Department of Neurscience, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
| | - Katja Peganc
- Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Comprehensive Center for Pediatrics, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria; Department for Cognitive Science, University of Ljubliana, Faculty of Education, Ljubliana, Slovenia
| | - Oswald D Kothgassner
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Comprehensive Center for Pediatrics Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Katrin Klebermass-Schrehof
- Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Comprehensive Center for Pediatrics, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Monika Olischar
- Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Comprehensive Center for Pediatrics, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Angelika Berger
- Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Comprehensive Center for Pediatrics, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Lisa Bartha-Doering
- Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Comprehensive Center for Pediatrics, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
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17
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Cho I, Lee Y, Song HJ. Six-month-olds' ability to use linguistic cues when interpreting others' pointing actions. Infant Behav Dev 2021; 64:101621. [PMID: 34371386 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2021.101621] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/03/2020] [Revised: 07/15/2021] [Accepted: 07/27/2021] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
The present research investigated whether six-month-olds who rarely produce pointing actions can detect the object-directedness and communicative function of others' pointing actions when linguistic information is provided. In Experiment 1, infants were randomly assigned to either a novel-word or emotional-vocalization condition. They were first familiarized with an event in which an actor uttered either a novel label (novel-word condition) or exclamatory expression (emotional-vocalization condition) and then pointed to one of two objects. Next, the positions of the objects were switched. During test trials, each infant watched the new-referent event where the actor pointed to the object to which the actor had not pointed before or the old-referent event where the actor pointed to the old object in its new location. Infants in the novel-word condition looked reliably longer at the new-referent event than at the old-referent event, suggesting that they encoded the object-directedness of the actor's point. In contrast, infants in the emotional-vocalization condition showed roughly equal looking times to the two events. To further examine infants' understanding of the communicative aspect of an actor's point using a different communicative context, Experiment 2 used an identical procedure to the novel-word condition in Experiment 1, except there was only one object present during the familiarization trials. When the familiarization trials did not include a contrasting object, we found that the communicative intention of the actor's point could be ambiguous. The infants showed roughly equal looking times during the two test events. The current research suggests that six-month-olds understand the object-directedness and communicative intention of others' pointing when presented with a label, but not when presented with an emotional non-speech vocalization.
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Affiliation(s)
- Isu Cho
- Department of Psychology, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, USA
| | - Yoonha Lee
- Department of Psychology, Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea
| | - Hyun-Joo Song
- Department of Psychology, Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea.
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18
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Yu X, Ferradal SL, Sliva DD, Dunstan J, Carruthers C, Sanfilippo J, Zuk J, Zöllei L, Boyd E, Gagoski B, Ou Y, Grant PE, Gaab N. Functional Connectivity in Infancy and Toddlerhood Predicts Long-Term Language and Preliteracy Outcomes. Cereb Cortex 2021; 32:bhab230. [PMID: 34347052 PMCID: PMC10847903 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhab230] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/25/2023] Open
Abstract
Functional connectivity (FC) techniques can delineate brain organization as early as infancy, enabling the characterization of early brain characteristics associated with subsequent behavioral outcomes. Previous studies have identified specific functional networks in infant brains that underlie cognitive abilities and pathophysiology subsequently observed in toddlers and preschoolers. However, it is unknown whether and how functional networks emerging within the first 18 months of life contribute to the development of higher order, complex functions of language/literacy at school-age. This 5-year longitudinal imaging project starting in infancy, utilized resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging and demonstrated prospective associations between FC in infants/toddlers and subsequent language and foundational literacy skills at 6.5 years old. These longitudinal associations were shown independently of key environmental influences and further present in a subsample of infant imaging data (≤12 months), suggesting early emerged functional networks specifically linked to high-order language and preliteracy skills. Moreover, emergent language skills in infancy and toddlerhood contributed to the prospective associations, implicating a role of early linguistic experiences in shaping the FC correlates of long-term oral language skills. The current results highlight the importance of functional organization established in infancy and toddlerhood as a neural scaffold underlying the learning process of complex cognitive functions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xi Yu
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
- Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience, Division of Developmental Medicine, Department of Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Silvina L Ferradal
- Department of Intelligent Systems Engineering, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47408, USA
| | - Danielle D Sliva
- Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience, Division of Developmental Medicine, Department of Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, USA
- Department of Neuroscience, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA
| | - Jade Dunstan
- Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience, Division of Developmental Medicine, Department of Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Clarisa Carruthers
- Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience, Division of Developmental Medicine, Department of Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Joseph Sanfilippo
- Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience, Division of Developmental Medicine, Department of Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Jennifer Zuk
- Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience, Division of Developmental Medicine, Department of Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, USA
- Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
- Department of Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA
| | - Lilla Zöllei
- A.A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02129, USA
| | - Emma Boyd
- A.A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02129, USA
| | - Borjan Gagoski
- Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
- Fetal Neonatal Neuroimaging and Developmental Science Center, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, USA
- Department of Radiology, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA 02215, USA
| | - Yangming Ou
- Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
- Fetal Neonatal Neuroimaging and Developmental Science Center, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, USA
- Department of Radiology, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA 02215, USA
- Computational Health Informatics Program, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - P Ellen Grant
- Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
- Fetal Neonatal Neuroimaging and Developmental Science Center, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, USA
- Department of Radiology, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA 02215, USA
- Department of Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Nadine Gaab
- Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience, Division of Developmental Medicine, Department of Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, USA
- Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
- Harvard Graduate School of Education Boston, Boston, MA 02115, USA
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Functional Network Development in Sagittal Craniosynostosis Treated With Whole Vault Cranioplasty. J Craniofac Surg 2021; 32:1721-1726. [PMID: 33534301 DOI: 10.1097/scs.0000000000007505] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022] Open
Abstract
INTRODUCTION In this study, the authors seek to clarify the neurological changes before and after whole vault cranioplasty (WVC) in patients born with sagittal craniosynostosis. METHODS A case control study design was performed that included thirty functional MRI scans, from 25 individual patients. Functional MRI and diffusion tension imaging data were analyzed with BioImageSuite (Yale University, USA). 9 functional brain networks were analyzed, with appropriate correlated functional regions of the brain and utilized for analysis. RESULTS Comparing functional MRI the infants after WVC versus infants before WVC group, the after WVC group demonstrated an increased connectivity in the left frontoparietal, secondary (V2), and third (V3) visual networks (P < 0.001). The right frontoparietal (RFPN) had decreased connectivity (P < 0.001). There is also a decrease and increase in anisotropy in the cingulum and precuneus despite surgery, respectively (P < 0.05). Adolescents treated with WVC compared to controls, demonstrated an increased connectivity in the salience and decreased connectivity in the RFPN relative to adolescent controls. CONCLUSIONS Patients born with sagittal craniosynostosis have different connections in infancy in most of the defined cerebral networks compared to controls. After surgery, there are specific connectivity changes that occur in the RFPN, left frontoparietal, V2, and V3 networks, which are areas associated with executive function and emotional control. Changes identified in white matter tract microstructure connections could be influential in changes in functional connectivity. Although, as a child with sagittal craniosynostosis develops, much of the abnormal network connections, seen in infancy preoperatively, corrects to some degree after surgery. However, some aberrancies in the salience and RFPN networks remain potentially affecting executive functioning.
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Novack MA, Brentari D, Goldin-Meadow S, Waxman S. Sign language, like spoken language, promotes object categorization in young hearing infants. Cognition 2021; 215:104845. [PMID: 34273677 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104845] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/12/2020] [Revised: 04/19/2021] [Accepted: 07/07/2021] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
Abstract
The link between language and cognition is unique to our species and emerges early in infancy. Here, we provide the first evidence that this precocious language-cognition link is not limited to spoken language, but is instead sufficiently broad to include sign language, a language presented in the visual modality. Four- to six-month-old hearing infants, never before exposed to sign language, were familiarized to a series of category exemplars, each presented by a woman who either signed in American Sign Language (ASL) while pointing and gazing toward the objects, or pointed and gazed without language (control). At test, infants viewed two images: one, a new member of the now-familiar category; and the other, a member of an entirely new category. Four-month-old infants who observed ASL distinguished between the two test objects, indicating that they had successfully formed the object category; they were as successful as age-mates who listened to their native (spoken) language. Moreover, it was specifically the linguistic elements of sign language that drove this facilitative effect: infants in the control condition, who observed the woman only pointing and gazing failed to form object categories. Finally, the cognitive advantages of observing ASL quickly narrow in hearing infants: by 5- to 6-months, watching ASL no longer supports categorization, although listening to their native spoken language continues to do so. Together, these findings illuminate the breadth of infants' early link between language and cognition and offer insight into how it unfolds.
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Affiliation(s)
- Miriam A Novack
- Department of Medical Social Sciences, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, United States of America; Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, United States of America.
| | - Diane Brentari
- Department of Linguistics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States of America
| | - Susan Goldin-Meadow
- Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States of America
| | - Sandra Waxman
- Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, United States of America
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21
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Woodruff Carr K, Perszyk DR, Norton ES, Voss JL, Poeppel D, Waxman SR. Developmental changes in auditory‐evoked neural activity underlie infants’ links between language and cognition. Dev Sci 2021; 24:e13121. [DOI: 10.1111/desc.13121] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/12/2020] [Revised: 04/21/2021] [Accepted: 04/27/2021] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Kali Woodruff Carr
- Department of Psychology Northwestern University Evanston Illinois USA
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders Northwestern University Evanston Illinois USA
| | | | - Elizabeth S. Norton
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders Northwestern University Evanston Illinois USA
- Institute for Innovations in Developmental Sciences Northwestern University Chicago Illinois USA
| | - Joel L. Voss
- Institute for Innovations in Developmental Sciences Northwestern University Chicago Illinois USA
- Department of Medical Social Sciences Ken and Ruth Davee Department of Neurology Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, Feinberg School of Medicine Northwestern University Chicago Illinois USA
| | - David Poeppel
- Department of Neuroscience Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics Frankfurt am Main Germany
- Department of Psychology and Center for Neural Science New York University New York New York USA
| | - Sandra R. Waxman
- Department of Psychology Northwestern University Evanston Illinois USA
- Institute for Innovations in Developmental Sciences Northwestern University Chicago Illinois USA
- Institute for Policy Research Northwestern University Evanston Illinois USA
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22
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Dubois J, Alison M, Counsell SJ, Hertz‐Pannier L, Hüppi PS, Benders MJ. MRI of the Neonatal Brain: A Review of Methodological Challenges and Neuroscientific Advances. J Magn Reson Imaging 2021; 53:1318-1343. [PMID: 32420684 PMCID: PMC8247362 DOI: 10.1002/jmri.27192] [Citation(s) in RCA: 53] [Impact Index Per Article: 17.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/23/2019] [Revised: 04/24/2020] [Accepted: 04/24/2020] [Indexed: 01/04/2023] Open
Abstract
In recent years, exploration of the developing brain has become a major focus for researchers and clinicians in an attempt to understand what allows children to acquire amazing and unique abilities, as well as the impact of early disruptions (eg, prematurity, neonatal insults) that can lead to a wide range of neurodevelopmental disorders. Noninvasive neuroimaging methods such as MRI are essential to establish links between the brain and behavioral changes in newborns and infants. In this review article, we aim to highlight recent and representative studies using the various techniques available: anatomical MRI, quantitative MRI (relaxometry, diffusion MRI), multiparametric approaches, and functional MRI. Today, protocols use 1.5 or 3T MRI scanners, and specialized methodologies have been put in place for data acquisition and processing to address the methodological challenges specific to this population, such as sensitivity to motion. MR sequences must be adapted to the brains of newborns and infants to obtain relevant good soft-tissue contrast, given the small size of the cerebral structures and the incomplete maturation of tissues. The use of age-specific image postprocessing tools is also essential, as signal and contrast differ from the adult brain. Appropriate methodologies then make it possible to explore multiple neurodevelopmental mechanisms in a precise way, and assess changes with age or differences between groups of subjects, particularly through large-scale projects. Although MRI measurements only indirectly reflect the complex series of dynamic processes observed throughout development at the molecular and cellular levels, this technique can provide information on brain morphology, structural connectivity, microstructural properties of gray and white matter, and on the functional architecture. Finally, MRI measures related to clinical, behavioral, and electrophysiological markers have a key role to play from a diagnostic and prognostic perspective in the implementation of early interventions to avoid long-term disabilities in children. EVIDENCE LEVEL: 2 TECHNICAL EFFICACY STAGE: 1.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jessica Dubois
- University of ParisNeuroDiderot, INSERM,ParisFrance
- UNIACT, NeuroSpin, CEA; Paris‐Saclay UniversityGif‐sur‐YvetteFrance
| | - Marianne Alison
- University of ParisNeuroDiderot, INSERM,ParisFrance
- Department of Pediatric RadiologyAPHP, Robert‐Debré HospitalParisFrance
| | - Serena J. Counsell
- Centre for the Developing BrainSchool of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, King's College LondonLondonUK
| | - Lucie Hertz‐Pannier
- University of ParisNeuroDiderot, INSERM,ParisFrance
- UNIACT, NeuroSpin, CEA; Paris‐Saclay UniversityGif‐sur‐YvetteFrance
| | - Petra S. Hüppi
- Division of Development and Growth, Department of Woman, Child and AdolescentUniversity Hospitals of GenevaGenevaSwitzerland
| | - Manon J.N.L. Benders
- Department of NeonatologyUniversity Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht UniversityUtrechtthe Netherlands
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23
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Vouloumanos A, Yamashiro A. Building a Communication System in Infancy. MINNESOTA SYMPOSIA ON CHILD PSYCHOLOGY 2021. [DOI: 10.1002/9781119684527.ch2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
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24
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Aberrant auditory system and its developmental implications for autism. SCIENCE CHINA-LIFE SCIENCES 2021; 64:861-878. [DOI: 10.1007/s11427-020-1863-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/20/2020] [Accepted: 12/06/2020] [Indexed: 12/26/2022]
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25
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Tran XA, McDonald N, Dickinson A, Scheffler A, Frohlich J, Marin A, Kure Liu C, Nosco E, Şentürk D, Dapretto M, Spurling Jeste S. Functional connectivity during language processing in 3-month-old infants at familial risk for autism spectrum disorder. Eur J Neurosci 2020; 53:1621-1637. [PMID: 33043498 DOI: 10.1111/ejn.15005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/04/2019] [Revised: 09/05/2020] [Accepted: 10/06/2020] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
Auditory statistical learning (ASL) plays a role in language development and may lay a foundation for later social communication impairment. As part of a longitudinal study of infant siblings, we asked whether electroencephalography (EEG) measures of connectivity during ASL at 3 months of age-differentiated infants who showed signs of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) at age 18 months. We measured spectral power and phase coherence in the theta (4-6 Hz) and alpha (6-12 Hz) frequency bands within putative language networks. Infants were divided into ASD-concern (n = 14) and No-ASD-concern (n = 49) outcome groups based on their ASD symptoms at 18 months, measured using the Autism Diagnostic Observation Scale Toddler Module. Using permutation testing, we identified a trend toward reduced left fronto-central phase coherence at the electrode pair F9-C3 in both theta and alpha frequency bands in infants who later showed ASD symptoms at 18 months. Across outcome groups, alpha coherence at 3 months correlated with greater word production at 18 months on the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory. This study introduces signal processing and analytic tools that account for the challenges inherent in infant EEG studies, such as short duration of recordings, considerable movement artifact, and variable volume conduction. Our results indicate that connectivity, as measured by phase coherence during 2.5 min of ASL, can be quantified as early as 3 months and suggest that early alternations in connectivity may serve as markers of resilience for neurodevelopmental impairments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xuan A Tran
- Center for Autism Research and Treatment, UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Nicole McDonald
- Center for Autism Research and Treatment, UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Abigail Dickinson
- Center for Autism Research and Treatment, UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Aaron Scheffler
- Center for Autism Research and Treatment, UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Joel Frohlich
- Center for Autism Research and Treatment, UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Andrew Marin
- Center for Autism Research and Treatment, UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Christopher Kure Liu
- Center for Autism Research and Treatment, UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Erin Nosco
- Center for Autism Research and Treatment, UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Damla Şentürk
- Center for Autism Research and Treatment, UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Mirella Dapretto
- Center for Autism Research and Treatment, UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Shafali Spurling Jeste
- Center for Autism Research and Treatment, UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, Los Angeles, CA, USA
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26
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Does an Early Speech Preference Predict Linguistic and Social-Pragmatic Attention in Infants Displaying and Not Displaying Later ASD Symptoms? J Autism Dev Disord 2020; 50:2475-2490. [DOI: 10.1007/s10803-019-03924-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/27/2022]
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27
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Adam-Darque A, Pittet MP, Grouiller F, Rihs TA, Leuchter RHV, Lazeyras F, Michel CM, Hüppi PS. Neural Correlates of Voice Perception in Newborns and the Influence of Preterm Birth. Cereb Cortex 2020; 30:5717-5730. [PMID: 32518940 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhaa144] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/05/2020] [Revised: 05/01/2020] [Accepted: 05/01/2020] [Indexed: 12/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Maternal voice is a highly relevant stimulus for newborns. Adult voice processing occurs in specific brain regions. Voice-specific brain areas in newborns and the relevance of an early vocal exposure on these networks have not been defined. This study investigates voice perception in newborns and the impact of prematurity on the cerebral processes. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and high-density electroencephalography (EEG) were used to explore the brain responses to maternal and stranger female voices in full-term newborns and preterm infants at term-equivalent age (TEA). fMRI results and the EEG oddball paradigm showed enhanced processing for voices in preterms at TEA than in full-term infants. Preterm infants showed additional cortical regions involved in voice processing in fMRI and a late mismatch response for maternal voice, considered as a first trace of a recognition process based on memory representation. Full-term newborns showed increased cerebral activity to the stranger voice. Results from fMRI, oddball, and standard auditory EEG paradigms highlighted important change detection responses to novelty after birth. These findings suggest that the main components of the adult voice-processing networks emerge early in development. Moreover, an early postnatal exposure to voices in premature infants might enhance their capacity to process voices.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexandra Adam-Darque
- Division of Development and Growth, Department of Pediatrics, Geneva University Hospitals, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland.,Laboratory of Cognitive Neurorehabilitation, Division of Neurorehabilitation, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Geneva University Hospitals, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Marie P Pittet
- Division of Development and Growth, Department of Pediatrics, Geneva University Hospitals, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Frédéric Grouiller
- Department of Radiology and Medical Informatics, University of Geneva, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland.,Swiss Centre for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Tonia A Rihs
- Functional Brain Mapping Laboratory, Department of Neurosciences, University of Geneva, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Russia Ha-Vinh Leuchter
- Division of Development and Growth, Department of Pediatrics, Geneva University Hospitals, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland
| | - François Lazeyras
- Department of Radiology and Medical Informatics, University of Geneva, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Christoph M Michel
- Functional Brain Mapping Laboratory, Department of Neurosciences, University of Geneva, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Petra S Hüppi
- Division of Development and Growth, Department of Pediatrics, Geneva University Hospitals, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland
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28
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Steber S, Rossi S. So young, yet so mature? Electrophysiological and vascular correlates of phonotactic processing in 18-month-olds. Dev Cogn Neurosci 2020; 43:100784. [PMID: 32510350 PMCID: PMC7184260 DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2020.100784] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/23/2019] [Revised: 04/08/2020] [Accepted: 04/09/2020] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
The present study investigated neural correlates of implicit phonotactic processing in 18-month-old children that just reached an important step in language development: the vocabulary spurt. Pseudowords, either phonotactically legal or illegal with respect to their native language, were acoustically presented to monolingually German raised infants. Neural activity was simultaneously assessed by means of electroencephalography (EEG) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). The former method excellently tracks fast processing mechanisms, whereas the latter reveals brain areas recruited. Results of the present study indicate that 18-month-olds recognize the linguistic properties of their native language based on phonotactics. This manifested in an increased N400 for legal compared to illegal pseudowords in the EEG conforming to adult-like mechanisms. Unfortunately, fNIRS findings did not support this discrimination ability. Possible methodological and brain maturational reasons might explain this null finding. This study provides evidence for the advantage of a multi-methodological approach in order to get a clear picture on neural language development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah Steber
- ICONE - Innsbruck Cognitive Neuroscience, Department for Hearing, Speech, and Voice Disorders, Medical University of Innsbruck, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria; Department of Psychology, University of Innsbruck, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria.
| | - Sonja Rossi
- ICONE - Innsbruck Cognitive Neuroscience, Department for Hearing, Speech, and Voice Disorders, Medical University of Innsbruck, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria.
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29
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Johnson EG, Prabhakar J, Mooney LN, Ghetti S. Neuroimaging the sleeping brain: Insight on memory functioning in infants and toddlers. Infant Behav Dev 2020; 58:101427. [PMID: 32085988 PMCID: PMC7089830 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2020.101427] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/07/2019] [Revised: 02/06/2020] [Accepted: 02/07/2020] [Indexed: 02/06/2023]
Abstract
Episodic memory, or the ability to remember past events with specific detail, is central to the human experience and is related to learning and adaptive functioning in a variety of domains. In typically developing children, episodic memory emerges during infancy and improves during early childhood and beyond. Developmental processes within the hippocampus are hypothesized to be primarily responsible for both the early emergence and persistence of episodic memory in late infancy and early childhood. However, these hypotheses are based on non-human models. In-vivo investigations in early human development of hippocampal processes have been significantly limited by methodological challenges in acquiring neuroimaging data, particularly task-related functional neuroimaging data, from infants and toddlers. Recent studies in adults have shown neural activity in the brain regions supporting episodic memory during slow-wave sleep using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and fMRI has been increasingly utilized in infancy and early childhood to address other research questions. We review initial evidence and present preliminary data showing the promise of this approach for examining hippocampal contribution to how infants and toddlers remember individual events, and their association with information about the context in which the event occurred. Overall, our review, integrated with the presentation of some preliminary data provides insight on leveraging sleep to gain new perspectives on early memory functioning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elliott Gray Johnson
- Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis, United States; Human Development Graduate Group, University of California, Davis, United States.
| | - Janani Prabhakar
- Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis, United States
| | - Lindsey N Mooney
- Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis, United States; Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, United States
| | - Simona Ghetti
- Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis, United States; Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, United States; Human Development Graduate Group, University of California, Davis, United States
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30
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Adibpour P, Lebenberg J, Kabdebon C, Dehaene-Lambertz G, Dubois J. Anatomo-functional correlates of auditory development in infancy. Dev Cogn Neurosci 2020; 42:100752. [PMID: 32072930 PMCID: PMC6992933 DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2019.100752] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/20/2019] [Revised: 10/23/2019] [Accepted: 12/20/2019] [Indexed: 10/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Infant brain development incorporates several intermingled mechanisms leading to intense and asynchronous maturation across cerebral networks and functional modalities. Combining electroencephalography (EEG) and diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), previous studies in the visual modality showed that the functional maturation of the event-related potentials (ERP) during the first postnatal semester relates to structural changes in the corresponding white matter pathways. Here investigated similar issues in the auditory modality. We measured ERPs to syllables in 1- to 6-month-old infants and related them to the maturational properties of underlying neural substrates measured with diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). We first observed a decrease in the latency of the auditory P2, and in the diffusivities in the auditory tracts and perisylvian regions with age. Secondly, we highlighted some of the early functional and structural substrates of lateralization. Contralateral responses to monoaural syllables were stronger and faster than ipsilateral responses, particularly in the left hemisphere. Besides, the acoustic radiations, arcuate fasciculus, middle temporal and angular gyri showed DTI asymmetries with a more complex and advanced microstructure in the left hemisphere, whereas the reverse was observed for the inferior frontal and superior temporal gyri. Finally, after accounting for the age-related variance, we correlated the inter-individual variability in P2 responses and in the microstructural properties of callosal fibers and inferior frontal regions. This study combining dedicated EEG and MRI approaches in infants highlights the complex relation between the functional responses to auditory stimuli and the maturational properties of the corresponding neural network.
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Affiliation(s)
- Parvaneh Adibpour
- Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit U992, NeuroSpin Center, Gif/Yvette, France.
| | - Jessica Lebenberg
- Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit U992, NeuroSpin Center, Gif/Yvette, France; UNATI, CEA DRF Institut Joliot, Gif/Yvette, France
| | - Claire Kabdebon
- Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit U992, NeuroSpin Center, Gif/Yvette, France
| | | | - Jessica Dubois
- Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit U992, NeuroSpin Center, Gif/Yvette, France; Université de Paris, NeuroDiderot, Inserm, F-75019 Paris, France
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31
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Karami M, Nilipour R, Barekatain M, Gaillard WD. Language representation and presurgical language mapping in pediatric epilepsy: A narrative review. IRANIAN JOURNAL OF CHILD NEUROLOGY 2020; 14:7-18. [PMID: 32952578 PMCID: PMC7468084] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/02/2020] [Revised: 01/09/2020] [Accepted: 01/14/2020] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
As one of the most common neurological diseases in children, epilepsy affects 0.9-2% of children. Complex interactions among the etiologies of epilepsy, interictal discharges, seizures, and antiepileptic drugs lead to cognitive impairments in children with epilepsy. Since epilepsy is considered as a network disorder, in which seizures have a widespread impact on many parts of the brain, childhood epilepsy can even affect the normal development of language. About 25% of children with epilepsy do not respond to medications; therefore, brain surgery is considered as a treatment option for some of them. Presurgical neuropsychological evaluations including language mapping are recommended to preserve cognitive and language abilities of patients after surgery. Functional magnetic resonance imaging as a non-invasive technique for presurgical language mapping has been widely recommended in many epileptic centers. The present study reviewed language representation and presurgical language mapping in children with epilepsy. Mapping language in children with epilepsy helps to localize the epileptogenic zone, and also, to predict the cognitive outcome of epilepsy surgery and possible cognitive rehabilitation. This review collected information about language representation and language mapping in pediatric epilepsy settings.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mahdieh Karami
- PhD of Cognitive Science of Language, ICSS, Tehran, Iran
| | - Reza Nilipour
- Emeritus Professor of Neurolinguistics and Clinical Linguistics, Department of Speech Therapy, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| | - Majid Barekatain
- Professor of Neuropsychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran
| | - William D Gaillard
- Professor of Neurology and Pediatrics, George Washington University, Center for Neuroscience and Behavioral Health, Children's National Medical Center, Washington DC. USA
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32
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Mercure E, Evans S, Pirazzoli L, Goldberg L, Bowden-Howl H, Coulson-Thaker K, Beedie I, Lloyd-Fox S, Johnson MH, MacSweeney M. Language Experience Impacts Brain Activation for Spoken and Signed Language in Infancy: Insights From Unimodal and Bimodal Bilinguals. NEUROBIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE (CAMBRIDGE, MASS.) 2020; 1:9-32. [PMID: 32274469 PMCID: PMC7145445 DOI: 10.1162/nol_a_00001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/10/2023]
Abstract
Recent neuroimaging studies suggest that monolingual infants activate a left-lateralized frontotemporal brain network in response to spoken language, which is similar to the network involved in processing spoken and signed language in adulthood. However, it is unclear how brain activation to language is influenced by early experience in infancy. To address this question, we present functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) data from 60 hearing infants (4 to 8 months of age): 19 monolingual infants exposed to English, 20 unimodal bilingual infants exposed to two spoken languages, and 21 bimodal bilingual infants exposed to English and British Sign Language (BSL). Across all infants, spoken language elicited activation in a bilateral brain network including the inferior frontal and posterior temporal areas, whereas sign language elicited activation in the right temporoparietal area. A significant difference in brain lateralization was observed between groups. Activation in the posterior temporal region was not lateralized in monolinguals and bimodal bilinguals, but right lateralized in response to both language modalities in unimodal bilinguals. This suggests that the experience of two spoken languages influences brain activation for sign language when experienced for the first time. Multivariate pattern analyses (MVPAs) could classify distributed patterns of activation within the left hemisphere for spoken and signed language in monolinguals (proportion correct = 0.68; p = 0.039) but not in unimodal or bimodal bilinguals. These results suggest that bilingual experience in infancy influences brain activation for language and that unimodal bilingual experience has greater impact on early brain lateralization than bimodal bilingual experience.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Samuel Evans
- University College London, London, UK
- University of Westminster, London, UK
| | - Laura Pirazzoli
- Birkbeck - University of London, London, UK
- Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, US
| | | | - Harriet Bowden-Howl
- University College London, London, UK
- University of Plymouth, Plymouth, Devon, UK
| | | | | | - Sarah Lloyd-Fox
- Birkbeck - University of London, London, UK
- University of Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, UK
| | - Mark H. Johnson
- Birkbeck - University of London, London, UK
- University of Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, UK
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Right Structural and Functional Reorganization in Four-Year-Old Children with Perinatal Arterial Ischemic Stroke Predict Language Production. eNeuro 2019; 6:ENEURO.0447-18.2019. [PMID: 31383726 PMCID: PMC6749144 DOI: 10.1523/eneuro.0447-18.2019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/12/2018] [Revised: 04/24/2019] [Accepted: 06/03/2019] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Brain imaging methods have contributed to shed light on the mechanisms of recovery after early brain insult. The assumption that the unaffected right hemisphere can take over language functions after left perinatal stroke is still under debate. Here, we report how patterns of brain structural and functional reorganization were associated with language outcomes in a group of four-year-old children with left perinatal arterial ischemic stroke (PAIS). Specifically, we gathered specific fine-grained developmental measures of receptive and productive aspects of language as well as standardized measures of cognitive development. We also collected structural neuroimaging data as well as functional activations during a passive listening story-telling fMRI task and a resting state session (rs-fMRI). Children with a left perinatal stroke showed larger lateralization indices of both structural and functional connectivity of the dorsal language pathway towards the right hemisphere that, in turn, were associated with better language outcomes. Importantly, the pattern of structural asymmetry was significantly more right-lateralized in children with a left perinatal brain insult than in a group of matched healthy controls. These results strongly suggest that early lesions of the left dorsal pathway and the associated perisylvian regions can induce the interhemispheric transfer of language functions to right homolog regions. This study provides combined evidence of structural and functional brain reorganization of language networks after early stroke with strong implications for neurobiological models of language development.
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34
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What is the Functional Difference Between Sagittal With Metopic and Isolated Sagittal Craniosynotosis? J Craniofac Surg 2019; 30:968-973. [DOI: 10.1097/scs.0000000000005288] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/27/2022] Open
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35
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McDonald NM, Perdue KL, Eilbott J, Loyal J, Shic F, Pelphrey KA. Infant brain responses to social sounds: A longitudinal functional near-infrared spectroscopy study. Dev Cogn Neurosci 2019; 36:100638. [PMID: 30889544 PMCID: PMC7033285 DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2019.100638] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/01/2018] [Revised: 02/03/2019] [Accepted: 03/07/2019] [Indexed: 01/24/2023] Open
Abstract
Infants are responsive to and show a preference for human vocalizations from very early in development. While previous studies have provided a strong foundation of understanding regarding areas of the infant brain that respond preferentially to social vs. non-social sounds, how the infant brain responds to sounds of varying social significance over time, and how this relates to behavior, is less well understood. The current study uniquely examined longitudinal brain responses to social sounds of differing social-communicative value in infants at 3 and 6 months of age using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). At 3 months, infants showed similar patterns of widespread activation in bilateral temporal cortices to communicative and non-communicative human non-speech vocalizations, while by 6 months infants showed more similar, and focal, responses to social sounds that carried increased social value (infant-directed speech and human non-speech communicative sounds). In addition, we found that brain activity at 3 months of age related to later brain activity and receptive language abilities as measured at 6 months. These findings suggest areas of consistency and change in auditory social perception between 3 and 6 months of age.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nicole M McDonald
- Yale Child Study Center, 230 S. Frontage Rd., New Haven, CT, 06520, USA.
| | - Katherine L Perdue
- Division of Developmental Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital, 1 Autumn St., 6th Floor, Boston, MA, USA.
| | - Jeffrey Eilbott
- Yale Child Study Center, 230 S. Frontage Rd., New Haven, CT, 06520, USA.
| | - Jaspreet Loyal
- Children's Hospital, Yale New Haven Hospital, 20 York St., New Haven, CT, 06510, USA.
| | - Frederick Shic
- Yale Child Study Center, 230 S. Frontage Rd., New Haven, CT, 06520, USA.
| | - Kevin A Pelphrey
- Yale Child Study Center, 230 S. Frontage Rd., New Haven, CT, 06520, USA.
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36
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Perszyk DR, Waxman SR. Infants' advances in speech perception shape their earliest links between language and cognition. Sci Rep 2019; 9:3293. [PMID: 30824848 PMCID: PMC6397155 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-39511-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/31/2018] [Accepted: 01/02/2019] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
The power of human language derives not only from the precision of its signal or the complexity of its grammar, but also from its links to cognition. Infants as young as 3 months have begun to link language and core cognitive capacities. At 3 and 4 months, this link is not exclusive to human language: listening to vocalizations of nonhuman primates also supports infant cognition. By 6 months, infants have tuned this link to human speech alone. Here we provide evidence that infants' increasing precision in speech perception shapes which signals they will link to cognition. Infants listening to German, a nonnative language that shares key rhythmic and prosodic properties with their own native language (English), successfully formed object categories. In contrast, those listening to Cantonese, a language that differs considerably in these suprasegmental properties, failed. This provides the first evidence that infants' increasingly precise perceptual tuning to the sounds of their native language sets constraints on the range of human languages they will link to cognition: infants begin to specify which human languages they will link to core cognitive capacities even before they sever the link between nonhuman primate vocalizations and cognition.
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Fló A, Brusini P, Macagno F, Nespor M, Mehler J, Ferry AL. Newborns are sensitive to multiple cues for word segmentation in continuous speech. Dev Sci 2019; 22:e12802. [PMID: 30681763 DOI: 10.1111/desc.12802] [Citation(s) in RCA: 31] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/02/2018] [Revised: 01/19/2019] [Accepted: 01/21/2019] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Before infants can learn words, they must identify those words in continuous speech. Yet, the speech signal lacks obvious boundary markers, which poses a potential problem for language acquisition (Swingley, Philos Trans R Soc Lond. Series B, Biol Sci 364(1536), 3617-3632, 2009). By the middle of the first year, infants seem to have solved this problem (Bergelson & Swingley, Proc Natl Acad Sci 109(9), 3253-3258, 2012; Jusczyk & Aslin, Cogn Psychol 29, 1-23, 1995), but it is unknown if segmentation abilities are present from birth, or if they only emerge after sufficient language exposure and/or brain maturation. Here, in two independent experiments, we looked at two cues known to be crucial for the segmentation of human speech: the computation of statistical co-occurrences between syllables and the use of the language's prosody. After a brief familiarization of about 3 min with continuous speech, using functional near-infrared spectroscopy, neonates showed differential brain responses on a recognition test to words that violated either the statistical (Experiment 1) or prosodic (Experiment 2) boundaries of the familiarization, compared to words that conformed to those boundaries. Importantly, word recognition in Experiment 2 occurred even in the absence of prosodic information at test, meaning that newborns encoded the phonological content independently of its prosody. These data indicate that humans are born with operational language processing and memory capacities and can use at least two types of cues to segment otherwise continuous speech, a key first step in language acquisition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ana Fló
- Language, Cognition, and Development Laboratory, Scuola Internazionale di Studi Avanzati, Trieste, Italy.,Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA), Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM) U992, NeuroSpin Center, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
| | - Perrine Brusini
- Language, Cognition, and Development Laboratory, Scuola Internazionale di Studi Avanzati, Trieste, Italy.,Institute of Psychology Health and Society, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
| | - Francesco Macagno
- Neonatology Unit, Azienda Ospedaliera Santa Maria della Misericordia, Udine, Italy
| | - Marina Nespor
- Language, Cognition, and Development Laboratory, Scuola Internazionale di Studi Avanzati, Trieste, Italy
| | - Jacques Mehler
- Language, Cognition, and Development Laboratory, Scuola Internazionale di Studi Avanzati, Trieste, Italy
| | - Alissa L Ferry
- Language, Cognition, and Development Laboratory, Scuola Internazionale di Studi Avanzati, Trieste, Italy.,Division of Human Communication, Hearing, and Development, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
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38
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Sorcinelli A, Ference J, Curtin S, Vouloumanos A. Preference for speech in infancy differentially predicts language skills and autism-like behaviors. J Exp Child Psychol 2019; 178:295-316. [PMID: 30448530 PMCID: PMC6467219 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2018.09.011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/17/2018] [Revised: 09/16/2018] [Accepted: 09/17/2018] [Indexed: 12/29/2022]
Abstract
Early emerging biases for conspecific vocalizations are a hallmark of early development. Typically developing neonates listen to speech more than many other sounds, including non-biological non-speech sounds, but listen equally to speech and monkey calls. By 3 months of age, however, infants prefer speech over both non-biological non-speech sounds and monkey calls. We examined whether different listening preferences continue to develop along different developmental trajectories and whether listening preferences are related to developmental outcomes. Given the static preference for speech over non-biological non-speech sounds and the dynamic preference for speech over monkey calls between birth and 3 months, we examined whether 9-month-olds prefer speech over non-biological non-speech sounds (Experiment 1) and prefer speech over monkey calls (Experiment 2). We compared preferences for sounds in infants at low risk (SIBS-TD) and infants at high risk (SIBS-A) of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a heterogeneous population who differ from typically developing infants in their preferences for speech, and examined whether listening preferences predict vocabulary and autism-like behaviors at 12 months for both groups. At 9 months, SIBS-TD listened longer to speech than to non-speech sounds and listened longer to monkey calls than to speech, whereas SIBS-A listened longer to speech than to non-speech sounds but listened equally to speech and monkey calls. SIBS-TD's preferences did not predict immediate developmental outcomes. In contrast, SIBS-A who preferred speech over non-speech or monkey calls had larger vocabularies and fewer markers of autism-like behaviors at 12 months, which could have positive developmental implications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrea Sorcinelli
- Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA.
| | - Jennifer Ference
- Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4, Canada
| | - Suzanne Curtin
- Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4, Canada
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39
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Vanden Bosch der Nederlanden CM, Zaragoza C, Rubio-Garcia A, Clarkson E, Snyder JS. Change detection in complex auditory scenes is predicted by auditory memory, pitch perception, and years of musical training. PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 2018; 84:585-601. [PMID: 30120544 DOI: 10.1007/s00426-018-1072-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/30/2018] [Accepted: 08/04/2018] [Indexed: 10/28/2022]
Abstract
Our world is a sonically busy place and we use both acoustic information and experience-based knowledge to make sense of the sounds arriving at our ears. The knowledge we gain through experience has the potential to shape what sounds are prioritized in a complex scene. There are many examples of how visual expertise influences how we perceive objects in visual scenes, but few studies examine how auditory expertise is associated with attentional biases toward familiar real-world sounds in complex scenes. In the current study, we investigated whether musical expertise is associated with the ability to detect changes to real-world sounds in complex auditory scenes, and whether any such benefit is specific to musical instrument sounds. We also examined whether change detection is better for human-generated sounds in general or only communicative human sounds. We found that musicians had less change deafness overall. All listeners were better at detecting human communicative sounds compared to human non-communicative sounds, but this benefit was driven by speech sounds and sounds that were vocally generated. Musical listening skill, speech-in-noise, and executive function abilities were used to predict rates of change deafness. Auditory memory, musical training, fine-grained pitch processing, and an interaction between training and pitch processing accounted for 45.8% of the variance in change deafness. To better understand perceptual and cognitive expertise, it may be more important to measure various auditory skills and relate them to each other, as opposed to comparing experts to non-experts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christina M Vanden Bosch der Nederlanden
- Department of Psychology, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA. .,The Brain and Mind Institute, Western University, 1151 Richmond St, London, ON, N6A 3K7, Canada.
| | | | | | - Evan Clarkson
- Department of Psychology, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA
| | - Joel S Snyder
- Department of Psychology, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA
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40
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Wang Y, Shafto CL, Houston DM. Attention to speech and spoken language development in deaf children with cochlear implants: a 10-year longitudinal study. Dev Sci 2018; 21:e12677. [PMID: 29761835 DOI: 10.1111/desc.12677] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/11/2017] [Accepted: 03/16/2018] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Early auditory/language experience plays an important role in language development. In this study, we examined the effects of severe-to-profound hearing loss and subsequent cochlear implantation on the development of attention to speech in children with cochlear implants (CIs). In addition, we investigated the extent to which attention to speech may predict spoken language development in children with CIs. We tested children with CIs and compared them to chronologically age-matched peers with normal hearing (NH) on their attention to speech at four time points post implantation; specifically, less than 1 month, 3 to 6 months, 12 months, and 18 months post implantation. We also collected a variety of well-established speech perception and spoken language measures from the children with CIs in a 10-year longitudinal study. Children with CIs showed reduced attention to speech as compared to their peers with NH at less than 1 month post implantation, but a similar degree of attention to speech as their NH peers during later time points. In addition, attention to speech at 3 to 6 months post implantation predicts speech perception in children with CIs. These results inform language acquisition theories and bring insights into our understanding of early severe-to-profound hearing loss on infants' attention to speech skills. In addition, the findings have significant clinical implications for early intervention on hearing loss, which emphasizes the importance of developing strong listening skills. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7xiYo3Ua08&feature=youtu.be.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yuanyuan Wang
- Department of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
| | | | - Derek M Houston
- Department of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
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41
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Early asymmetric inter-hemispheric transfer in the auditory network: insights from infants with corpus callosum agenesis. Brain Struct Funct 2018; 223:2893-2905. [DOI: 10.1007/s00429-018-1667-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/01/2017] [Accepted: 04/13/2018] [Indexed: 10/17/2022]
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42
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Lloyd‐Fox S, Blasi A, Pasco G, Gliga T, Jones EJH, Murphy DGM, Elwell CE, Charman T, Johnson MH, Baron‐Cohen S, Bedford R, Bolton P, Cheung HMC, Davies K, Elsabbagh M, Fernandes J, Gammer I, Guiraud J, Liew M, Maris H, O'Hara L, Pickles A, Ribeiro H, Salomone E, Tucker L, Yemane F. Cortical responses before 6 months of life associate with later autism. Eur J Neurosci 2018; 47:736-749. [PMID: 29057543 PMCID: PMC5900943 DOI: 10.1111/ejn.13757] [Citation(s) in RCA: 56] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/21/2016] [Revised: 10/05/2017] [Accepted: 10/17/2017] [Indexed: 01/12/2023]
Abstract
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a common, highly heritable, developmental disorder and later-born siblings of diagnosed children are at higher risk of developing ASD than the general population. Although the emergence of behavioural symptoms of ASD in toddlerhood is well characterized, far less is known about development during the first months of life of infants at familial risk. In a prospective longitudinal study of infants at familial risk followed to 36 months, we measured functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) brain responses to social videos of people (i.e. peek-a-boo) compared to non-social images (vehicles) and human vocalizations compared to non-vocal sounds. At 4-6 months, infants who went on to develop ASD at 3 years (N = 5) evidenced-reduced activation to visual social stimuli relative to low-risk infants (N = 16) across inferior frontal (IFG) and posterior temporal (pSTS-TPJ) regions of the cortex. Furthermore, these infants also showed reduced activation to vocal sounds and enhanced activation to non-vocal sounds within left lateralized temporal (aMTG-STG/pSTS-TPJ) regions compared with low-risk infants and high-risk infants who did not develop ASD (N = 15). The degree of activation to both the visual and auditory stimuli correlated with parent-reported ASD symptomology in toddlerhood. These preliminary findings are consistent with later atypical social brain responses seen in children and adults with ASD, and highlight the need for further work interrogating atypical processing in early infancy and how it may relate to later social interaction and communication difficulties characteristic of ASD.
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Affiliation(s)
- S. Lloyd‐Fox
- Centre for Brain and Cognitive DevelopmentBirkbeck, University of LondonMalet St.WC1E 7HXLondonUK
| | - A. Blasi
- Centre for Brain and Cognitive DevelopmentBirkbeck, University of LondonMalet St.WC1E 7HXLondonUK
| | - G. Pasco
- Department of PsychologyInstitute of Psychiatry, Psychology, & NeuroscienceKing's College LondonLondonUK
| | - T. Gliga
- Centre for Brain and Cognitive DevelopmentBirkbeck, University of LondonMalet St.WC1E 7HXLondonUK
| | - E. J. H. Jones
- Centre for Brain and Cognitive DevelopmentBirkbeck, University of LondonMalet St.WC1E 7HXLondonUK
| | - D. G. M. Murphy
- Department of Forensic and Neurodevelopmental ScienceThe Sackler Institute for Translational NeurodevelopmentInstitute of Psychiatry, Psychology, & NeuroscienceKing's College LondonLondonUK
| | - C. E. Elwell
- Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical EngineeringUniversity College LondonLondonUK
| | - T. Charman
- Department of PsychologyInstitute of Psychiatry, Psychology, & NeuroscienceKing's College LondonLondonUK
| | - M. H. Johnson
- Centre for Brain and Cognitive DevelopmentBirkbeck, University of LondonMalet St.WC1E 7HXLondonUK
- Department of PsychologyUniversity of CambridgeCambridgeUK
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The infant brain in the social world: Moving toward interactive social neuroscience with functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2018; 87:38-49. [PMID: 29371139 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2018.01.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 36] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/09/2017] [Revised: 12/04/2017] [Accepted: 01/19/2018] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
Typically developing infants rapidly acquire a sophisticated array of social skills within the first year of life. These social skills are largely learned within the context of day-to-day interactions with caregivers. While social neuroscience has made great gains in our knowledge of the underlying neural circuitry of social cognition and behavior, much of this work has focused on experiments that sacrifice ecological validity for experimental control. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a promising methodology for measuring brain activity in the context of naturalistic social interactions. Here, we review what we have learned from fNIRS studies that have used traditional experimental stimuli to study social development during infancy. We then discuss recent infant fNIRS studies that have utilized more naturalistic social stimuli, followed by a discussion of applications of this methodology to the study of atypical social development, with a focus on infants at risk for autism spectrum disorder. We end with recommendations for applying fNIRS to studies of typically developing and at-risk infants in naturalistic social situations.
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Abstract
Human language, a signature of our species, derives its power from its links to human cognition. For centuries, scholars have been captivated by this link between language and cognition. In this article, we shift this focus. Adopting a developmental lens, we review recent evidence that sheds light on the origin and developmental unfolding of the link between language and cognition in the first year of life. This evidence, which reveals the joint contributions of infants' innate capacities and their sensitivity to experience, highlights how a precocious link between language and cognition advances infants beyond their initial perceptual and conceptual capacities. The evidence also identifies the conceptual advantages this link brings to human infants. By tracing the emergence of a language-cognition link in infancy, this article reveals a dynamic developmental cascade in infants' first year, with each developmental advance providing a foundation for subsequent advances.
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Affiliation(s)
- Danielle R Perszyk
- Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208; ,
| | - Sandra R Waxman
- Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208; ,
- Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208
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45
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Abstract
To understand the type of neural computations that may explain how human infants acquire their native language in only a few months, the study of their neural architecture is necessary. The development of brain imaging techniques has opened the possibilities of studying human infants without discomfort, and although these studies are still sparse, several characteristics are noticeable in the human infant's brain: first, parallel and hierarchical processing pathways are observed before intense exposure to speech with an efficient temporal coding in the left hemisphere and, second, frontal regions are involved from the start in infants' cognition. These observations are certainly not sufficient to explain language acquisition but illustrate a new approach that relies on a better description of infants' brain activity during linguistic tasks, which is compared to results in animals and human adults to clarify the neural bases of language in humans.
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46
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Salvan P, Tournier JD, Batalle D, Falconer S, Chew A, Kennea N, Aljabar P, Dehaene‐Lambertz G, Arichi T, Edwards AD, Counsell SJ. Language ability in preterm children is associated with arcuate fasciculi microstructure at term. Hum Brain Mapp 2017; 38:3836-3847. [PMID: 28470961 PMCID: PMC5518442 DOI: 10.1002/hbm.23632] [Citation(s) in RCA: 32] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/06/2016] [Revised: 03/31/2017] [Accepted: 04/17/2017] [Indexed: 12/22/2022] Open
Abstract
In the mature human brain, the arcuate fasciculus mediates verbal working memory, word learning, and sublexical speech repetition. However, its contribution to early language acquisition remains unclear. In this work, we aimed to evaluate the role of the direct segments of the arcuate fasciculi in the early acquisition of linguistic function. We imaged a cohort of 43 preterm born infants (median age at birth of 30 gestational weeks; median age at scan of 42 postmenstrual weeks) using high b value high-angular resolution diffusion-weighted neuroimaging and assessed their linguistic performance at 2 years of age. Using constrained spherical deconvolution tractography, we virtually dissected the arcuate fasciculi and measured fractional anisotropy (FA) as a metric of white matter development. We found that term equivalent FA of the left and right arcuate fasciculi was significantly associated with individual differences in linguistic and cognitive abilities in early childhood, independent of the degree of prematurity. These findings suggest that differences in arcuate fasciculi microstructure at the time of normal birth have a significant impact on language development and modulate the first stages of language learning. Hum Brain Mapp 38:3836-3847, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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Affiliation(s)
- Piergiorgio Salvan
- Centre for the Developing BrainDivision of Imaging Sciences & Biomedical Engineering, King's College LondonUnited Kingdom
| | - J. Donald Tournier
- Centre for the Developing BrainDivision of Imaging Sciences & Biomedical Engineering, King's College LondonUnited Kingdom
| | - Dafnis Batalle
- Centre for the Developing BrainDivision of Imaging Sciences & Biomedical Engineering, King's College LondonUnited Kingdom
| | - Shona Falconer
- Centre for the Developing BrainDivision of Imaging Sciences & Biomedical Engineering, King's College LondonUnited Kingdom
| | - Andrew Chew
- Centre for the Developing BrainDivision of Imaging Sciences & Biomedical Engineering, King's College LondonUnited Kingdom
| | - Nigel Kennea
- Neonatal unit, St. George's University Hospital NHSLondonUnited Kingdom
| | - Paul Aljabar
- Centre for the Developing BrainDivision of Imaging Sciences & Biomedical Engineering, King's College LondonUnited Kingdom
| | | | - Tomoki Arichi
- Centre for the Developing BrainDivision of Imaging Sciences & Biomedical Engineering, King's College LondonUnited Kingdom
- Department of BioengineeringImperial College LondonUnited Kingdom
| | - A. David Edwards
- Centre for the Developing BrainDivision of Imaging Sciences & Biomedical Engineering, King's College LondonUnited Kingdom
- Department of BioengineeringImperial College LondonUnited Kingdom
| | - Serena J. Counsell
- Centre for the Developing BrainDivision of Imaging Sciences & Biomedical Engineering, King's College LondonUnited Kingdom
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Longitudinal Study of the Emerging Functional Connectivity Asymmetry of Primary Language Regions during Infancy. J Neurosci 2017; 36:10883-10892. [PMID: 27798142 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.3980-15.2016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 38] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/04/2015] [Accepted: 08/24/2016] [Indexed: 02/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Asymmetry in the form of left-hemisphere lateralization is a striking characteristic of the cerebral regions involved in the adult language network. In this study, we leverage a large sample of typically developing human infants with longitudinal resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scans to delineate the trajectory of interhemispheric functional asymmetry in language-related regions during the first 2 years of life. We derived the trajectory of interhemispheric functional symmetry of the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and superior temporal gyrus (STG), the sensory and visual cortices, and two higher-order regions within the intraparietal sulcus and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Longitudinal models revealed a best fit with quadratic age terms and showed significant estimated coefficients of determination for both the IFG (r2 = 0.261, p < 0.001) and the STG (r2 = 0.142, p < 0.001) regions while all other regions were best modeled by log-linear increases. These inverse-U-shaped functions of the language regions peaked at ∼11.5 months of age, indicating that a transition toward asymmetry began in the second year. This shift was accompanied by an increase in the functional connectivity of these regions within the left hemisphere. Finally, we detected an association between the trajectory of the IFG and language outcomes at 4 years of age (χ2 = 10.986, p = 0.011). Our results capture the developmental timeline of the transition toward interhemispheric functional asymmetry during the first 2 years of life. More generally, our findings suggest that increasing interhemispheric functional symmetry in the first year might be a general principle of the developing brain, governing different functional systems, including those that will eventually become lateralized in adulthood. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Cross-sectional studies of the language system in early infancy suggest that the basic neural mechanisms are in place even before birth. This study represents the first of its kind, using a large longitudinal sample of infants, to delineate the early language-related transition toward interhemispheric functional asymmetry in the brain using resting-state functional MRI. More generally, our findings suggest that increasing interhemispheric functional symmetry in the first year might be a general principle of the developing brain governing multiple functional systems, including those that will eventually become lateralized in adulthood. Although resting-state functional MRI cannot provide direct insights into the developmental mechanisms of language lateralization, this study reveals language-related functional connectivity changes during infancy, marking critical points in the development of the brain's functional architecture.
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Wild CJ, Linke AC, Zubiaurre-Elorza L, Herzmann C, Duffy H, Han VK, Lee DSC, Cusack R. Adult-like processing of naturalistic sounds in auditory cortex by 3- and 9-month old infants. Neuroimage 2017. [PMID: 28648887 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.06.038] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Functional neuroimaging has been used to show that the developing auditory cortex of very young human infants responds, in some way, to sound. However, impoverished stimuli and uncontrolled designs have made it difficult to attribute brain responses to specific auditory features, and thus made it difficult to assess the maturity of feature tuning in auditory cortex. To address this, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure the brain activity evoked by naturalistic sounds (a series of sung lullabies) in two groups of infants (3 and 9 months) and adults. We developed a novel analysis method - inter-subject regression (ISR) - to quantify the similarity of cortical responses between infants and adults, and to decompose components of the response due to different auditory features. We found that the temporal pattern of activity in infant auditory cortex shared similarity with adults. Some of this shared response could be attributed to simple acoustic features, such as frequency, pitch, envelope, but other parts were not, suggesting that even more complex adult-like features are represented in auditory cortex in early infancy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Conor J Wild
- Brain and Mind Institute, Western University, London, Canada.
| | - Annika C Linke
- Brain and Mind Institute, Western University, London, Canada
| | | | | | - Hester Duffy
- Brain and Mind Institute, Western University, London, Canada
| | - Victor K Han
- Children's Health Research Institute, London, Canada
| | - David S C Lee
- Children's Health Research Institute, London, Canada
| | - Rhodri Cusack
- Brain and Mind Institute, Western University, London, Canada; Children's Health Research Institute, London, Canada; School of Psychology, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
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49
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Shapiro KA, Kim H, Mandelli ML, Rogers EE, Gano D, Ferriero DM, Barkovich AJ, Gorno-Tempini ML, Glass HC, Xu D. Early changes in brain structure correlate with language outcomes in children with neonatal encephalopathy. NEUROIMAGE-CLINICAL 2017; 15:572-580. [PMID: 28924555 PMCID: PMC5593272 DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2017.06.015] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/23/2017] [Revised: 05/29/2017] [Accepted: 06/09/2017] [Indexed: 01/18/2023]
Abstract
Global patterns of brain injury correlate with motor, cognitive, and language outcomes in survivors of neonatal encephalopathy (NE). However, it is still unclear whether local changes in brain structure predict specific deficits. We therefore examined whether differences in brain structure at 6 months of age are associated with neurodevelopmental outcomes in this population. We enrolled 32 children with NE, performed structural brain MR imaging at 6 months, and assessed neurodevelopmental outcomes at 30 months. All subjects underwent T1-weighted imaging at 3 T using a 3D IR-SPGR sequence. Images were normalized in intensity and nonlinearly registered to a template constructed specifically for this population, creating a deformation field map. We then used deformation based morphometry (DBM) to correlate variation in the local volume of gray and white matter with composite scores on the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development (Bayley-III) at 30 months. Our general linear model included gestational age, sex, birth weight, and treatment with hypothermia as covariates. Regional brain volume was significantly associated with language scores, particularly in perisylvian cortical regions including the left supramarginal gyrus, posterior superior and middle temporal gyri, and right insula, as well as inferior frontoparietal subcortical white matter. We did not find significant correlations between regional brain volume and motor or cognitive scale scores. We conclude that, in children with a history of NE, local changes in the volume of perisylvian gray and white matter at 6 months are correlated with language outcome at 30 months. Quantitative measures of brain volume on early MRI may help identify infants at risk for poor language outcomes. Global volume loss after neonatal brain injury results in poorer language outcome. Variability in language correlates specifically with left perisylvian brain volume. Changes in regional brain volume are not correlated with motor or cognitive outcome.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kevin A Shapiro
- Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, USA.
| | - Hosung Kim
- Department of Radiology, University of California, San Francisco, USA
| | | | | | - Dawn Gano
- Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, USA; Department of Pediatrics, University of California, San Francisco, USA
| | - Donna M Ferriero
- Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, USA; Department of Pediatrics, University of California, San Francisco, USA
| | - A James Barkovich
- Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, USA; Department of Radiology, University of California, San Francisco, USA; Department of Pediatrics, University of California, San Francisco, USA
| | | | - Hannah C Glass
- Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, USA; Department of Pediatrics, University of California, San Francisco, USA; Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco, USA
| | - Duan Xu
- Department of Radiology, University of California, San Francisco, USA
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May L, Gervain J, Carreiras M, Werker JF. The specificity of the neural response to speech at birth. Dev Sci 2017; 21:e12564. [PMID: 28503845 DOI: 10.1111/desc.12564] [Citation(s) in RCA: 57] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/15/2015] [Accepted: 01/30/2017] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
In this work we ask whether at birth, the human brain responds uniquely to speech, or if similar activation also occurs to a non-speech surrogate 'language'. We compare neural activation in newborn infants to the language heard in utero (English), to an unfamiliar language (Spanish), and to a whistled surrogate language (Silbo Gomero) that, while used by humans to communicate, is not speech. Anterior temporal areas of the neonate cortex are activated in response to both familiar and unfamiliar spoken language, but these classic language areas are not activated to the whistled surrogate form. These results suggest that at the time human infants emerge from the womb, the neural preparation for language is specialized to speech.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lillian May
- Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
| | | | - Manuel Carreiras
- Basque Centre for Cognition, Brain, & Language (BCBL), San Sebastián, Spain.,Basque Foundation for Science (IKERBASQUE), Bizkaia, Spain
| | - Janet F Werker
- Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
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