Hemodynamic Correlates of Cognition in Human Infants

Aslin, Richard Ν.; Shukla, Mohinish; Emberson, Lauren L.

doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115108

Cited by 89 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 169 publications

(193 reference statements)

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“…There are two major infant groupings according to Cristia et al 3 that have been most commonly studied: newborns and 4-to 8-month-old infants. Studies by other groups, [4][5][6][7][8][9][10] in the age range of 5 to 7 months similar to the age range in our study, focused on the occipital, temporal, and parietal cortices.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 78%

“…There is considerable interest in using functional near-infared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to study infants with more recent studies (since July 2012) covering its broad potential as a noninvasive tool to study infant cognition, 10 typical and atypical development, 11 and, more specifically, to study face recognition, [12][13][14] shape processing, and motion 15,16 and color priming. 17 Despite the rapid growth in the number of infant fNIRS publications in recent years, this number is relatively low when compared to that of adult studies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Methodology for high-yield acquisition of functional near-infrared spectroscopy data from alert, upright infants

et al. 2016

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Abstract. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) research to date has tended to publish group-averaged rather than individual infant data due to normative basic research goals. Acquisition of individual infant time courses holds interest, however, both for cognitive science and particularly for clinical applications. Infants are more difficult to study than adults as they cannot be instructed to remain still. In addressing this, upright infants pose several associated complications for the researcher. We identified and optimized the factors that affect the quality of fNIRS data from individual 6-to 9-month-old infants exposed to a visual stimulation paradigm. The fNIRS headpiece was reconfigured to reduce inertia, increase comfort, and improve conformity to the head, while preserving fiber density to avoid missing the visual cortex activation. The visual-stimulation protocol was modified to keep the attention of infants throughout the measurement, thus helping to reduce motion artifacts. Adequate optical contact was verified by checking power levels before each measurement. By revising our experimental process and our data rejection criteria to prioritize good optical contact, we report for the first time usable hemodynamic data from 83% of infants and that two-thirds of infants produced a statistically significant fNIRS response.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 78%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Methodology for high-yield acquisition of functional near-infrared spectroscopy data from alert, upright infants

et al. 2016

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“…This important confirmatory result is consistent with previous work on temporal responses to auditory stimuli and occipital responses to visual stimuli in infants (see ref. 22 for a recent review).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the ERP is exquisitely sensitive to the properties of the stimuli, and so the enhanced response to the infrequent stimulus could be a prediction error, a nonspecific surprise effect, or a recovery to the greater repetition of the frequent stimulus (i.e., rebound from repetition suppression) (21). Using similar designs with similar interpretative limitations, recent work with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) (an optical imaging method for noninvasively recording functional changes in the hemodynamics of the infant cortex while the infant is awake and behaving) (22,23) has revealed increased neural responses to the presentation of novel acoustic stimuli (24) and evidence of stimulus anticipation (25).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Top-down modulation in the infant brain: Learning-induced expectations rapidly affect the sensory cortex at 6 months

Emberson

Richards

Aslin

2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Recent theoretical work emphasizes the role of expectation in neural processing, shifting the focus from feed-forward cortical hierarchies to models that include extensive feedback (e.g., predictive coding). Empirical support for expectation-related feedback is compelling but restricted to adult humans and nonhuman animals. Given the considerable differences in neural organization, connectivity, and efficiency between infant and adult brains, it is a crucial yet open question whether expectation-related feedback is an inherent property of the cortex (i.e., operational early in development) or whether expectation-related feedback develops with extensive experience and neural maturation. To determine whether infants' expectations about future sensory input modulate their sensory cortices without the confounds of stimulus novelty or repetition suppression, we used a cross-modal (audiovisual) omission paradigm and used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to record hemodynamic responses in the infant cortex. We show that the occipital cortex of 6-month-old infants exhibits the signature of expectation-based feedback. Crucially, we found that this region does not respond to auditory stimuli if they are not predictive of a visual event. Overall, these findings suggest that the young infant's brain is already capable of some rudimentary form of expectation-based feedback.O ver the past two decades, theoretical focus has shifted from predominantly feed-forward hierarchies of cortical function, where sensory cortex propagates information to higher level analyzers on the way to decision and motor control areas, to models in which feedback connections to lower-level cortical regions allow extensive top-down functional modulation based on expectation (1). An influential model for incorporating feedback is predictive coding, which compares expectations or predictions to input at each level of the processing hierarchy (2-4). There is extensive and compelling evidence for expectation-based modulation even at the earliest levels of sensory processing in both humans (5-7) and nonhuman animals (8). Because complex, naturalistic sensory input is characterized by temporal, spatial, and contextual regularities, the ability to modulate early sensory function as a result of expectations is believed to support adaptive perceptual abilities (4).Empirical evidence for expectation-based feedback, however, is restricted to adult humans and nonhuman animals. With their extensive experience, adults already have developed sophisticated internal models of the environment and have a highly interconnected brain and efficient neural processing. Comparatively, human infants are born with a demonstratively immature behavioral repertoire, have underdeveloped sensorimotor and cognitive capacities, and lack sophisticated internal models of the environment. These internal models undergo substantial postnatal development even in the early sensory cortex. For example, spontaneous activity of primary visual cortex (V1) in ferrets converges with e...

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“…While we cannot simultaneously measure brain structure in fNIRS, it is more tolerant to movement allowing task-related states in awake infants to be studied. fNIRS is used to study different brain processes in young infants, such as object processing, face processing, processing of human motion, language processing and learning, unimodal perceptual processing, multisensory processing, and resting state and cortical organization [41,42].…”

Section: Box 3 Methods and Recent Key Findings In Fnirsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human brain development over the early years

Haartsen

Jones

Johnson

2016

Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences

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Recent studies of the structural and functional development of the human brain over the early years have highlighted the rapid development of brain structures and their interconnectivity. Some regional functional specializations emerge within the first months after birth, while others have a more protracted course of development spanning over the first decade or longer. While some anatomical changes enable the emergence of new functions, evidence also points to the importance of resting state oscillations in sculpting neural architecture during development. In atypical development differences in brain structure, function and task-related activity in infancy often precede the emergence of later diagnostic behavioural symptoms.

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Hemodynamic Correlates of Cognition in Human Infants

Cited by 89 publications

References 169 publications

Methodology for high-yield acquisition of functional near-infrared spectroscopy data from alert, upright infants

Methodology for high-yield acquisition of functional near-infrared spectroscopy data from alert, upright infants

Top-down modulation in the infant brain: Learning-induced expectations rapidly affect the sensory cortex at 6 months

Human brain development over the early years

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