Maturation changes the excitability and effective connectivity of the frontal lobe: A developmental TMS–EEG study

Määttä, Sara; Säïsänen, Laura; Kallioniemi, Elisa; Lakka, Timo A.; Lintu, Niina; Haapala, Eero A.; Koskenkorva, Päivi; Niskanen, Eini; Ferreri, Florinda; Könönen, Mervi

doi:10.1002/hbm.24525

Cited by 21 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 138 publications

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“…Furthermore, trial-by-trial variability for event power was found to significantly decrease across adolescence in both task epochs (Figure 5). These results are in agreement with studies showing decreases in power through adolescence across the cortex 21,[32][33][34][35][36][37] with greater reliability in predicting age than MRI measures 38 . Age-related decreases in power are evident in the beta 21 , theta 39 , and gamma 22 bands with concomitant strengthening of EEG coherence between regions through adolescence 37,40 .…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Age-related change in transient gamma band activity during working memory maintenance through adolescence

McKeon

Calabro

Fuente

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Adolescence is a stage of development characterized by neurodevelopmental specialization of cognitive processes. In particular, working memory continues to improve through adolescence, with increases in response accuracy and decreases in response latency continuing well into the twenties. Human electroencephalogram (EEG) studies indicate that gamma oscillations (30-75 Hz) during the working memory delay period support the maintenance of mnemonic information guiding subsequent goal driven behavior, which decreases in power with development. Importantly, recent electrophysiological studies have shown that gamma bursts, and not sustained activity, reinstate working memory during the delay period. Developmental changes in gamma bursts during working memory, have not been studied. Thus, we used EEG in conjunction with a novel spectral event processing approach to investigate age-related changes in transient gamma band activity during a memory guided saccade (MGS) task in 164 10- to 30-year-olds. As expected, accuracy improved, and latency decreased with age. EEG results indicated robust age-related decreases in mean gamma power and the number of gamma band events during both the working memory delay epoch but also the fixation epoch before working memory encoding, suggesting age-related change in core aspects of information processing. Relationships between gamma events and behavior however were only evident during the working memory delay period and only during adolescence where more gamma events were associated with faster latency and trial level event variability was associated with latency variability. These results suggest a process of specialization where developmental decreases in gamma events into adulthood support working memory responses reflecting optimization of executive function.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Age-related change in transient gamma band activity during working memory maintenance through adolescence

McKeon

Calabro

Fuente

et al. 2022

Preprint

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“…The observed lower frontal myelin‐water content might occur in an early stage of the neurodevelopment (ie, related to a genetic component), or might be acquired during or after epilepsy onset (ie, related to epileptiform activity during the vulnerable years of childhood). Although no definite association for the duration of epilepsy was found in this study, the observed abnormality can be interpreted as a neurodevelopmental aspect of the disorder because the maturation of the frontal lobe is still ongoing . Human and animal studies have suggested frontal involvement during the generation or propagation of generalized GSWDs, although the exact brain regions involved are of ongoing debate .…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 66%

“…Although no definite association for the duration of epilepsy was found in this study, the observed abnormality can be interpreted as a neurodevelopmental aspect of the disorder because the maturation of the frontal lobe is still ongoing. 42 Human and animal studies have suggested frontal involvement during the generation or propagation of generalized GSWDs, although the exact brain regions involved are of ongoing debate. 1,2 EEG-functional MRI (fMRI) studies have found different patterns of activation 2 and animal studies point to the somatosensory cortex in the generation of GSWDs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lower myelin‐water content of the frontal lobe in childhood absence epilepsy

et al. 2019

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Objective The frontal lobe in childhood absence epilepsy (CAE) might be affected due to the suggested involvement of the frontal lobe during absence seizures and reports on attentional deficits. Previously, subtle white matter abnormalities have been reported in CAE. However, the impact of one of the most characteristic components of the white matter, the myelin content, remains underdetermined. Therefore, this study investigated whether the myelin content in frontal areas is adversely affected in CAE compared to controls. Methods Seventeen children with childhood absence epilepsy (mean age ± standard deviation [SD], 9.2 ± 2.1 years) and 15 age‐ and sex‐matched controls (mean age ± SD, 9.8 ± 1.8 years) underwent neuropsychological assessment and a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examination. T2 relaxometry scans were used to distinguish myelin‐water from tissue water and to determine the myelin‐water fraction (MWF) in the frontal, temporal, parietal, occipital, and insular lobes. A linear regression model including age and sex as covariates was used to investigate group differences. Furthermore, the relationship of MWF with cognitive performance and epilepsy characteristics was determined. Results The frontal lobe revealed a significantly lower myelin‐water content in children with CAE compared to controls over the developmental age range of 6‐12 years (5.7 ± 1.0% vs 6.6 ± 1.1%, P = 0.02). This association was not found for any of the other four lobes (P > 0.10). No significant relation was found between myelin‐water content and cognitive performance or epilepsy characteristics. Significance The lower frontal myelin‐water content of children with CAE in comparison with healthy controls probably reflects an altered neurodevelopmental aspect in CAE, of which the underlying mechanisms still need to be unraveled.

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“…A number of prior studies have already measured EEG responses to TMS in children (Kallioniemi et al, 2022), but in contexts unconcerned with PCI or consciousness. Although two such studies did report on the complexity of TMS evoked potentials in children (Määttä et al, 2019(Määttä et al, , 2017, the authors appeared to define complexity informally, e.g., based on the number of peaks in the TMS evoked potential, rather than using formal measures such as entropy or LZc. Furthermore, while MRI-guided TMS is safe overall in pediatric populations (Braden et al, 2022), administering TMS to children who do not directly benefit from such stimulation may be ethically ill-advised and, as such, validation efforts in children should only use sPCI without a TMS-based comparison.…”

Section: Ongoing and Future Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Not with a “zap” but with a “beep”: measuring the origins of perinatal experience

Frohlich¹,

Bayne²,

Dallavecchia³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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When does the mind begin? Infant psychology is mysterious in part because we cannot remember our first months of life, nor can we directly communicate with infants. Even more speculative is the possibility of mental life prior to birth. The question of when consciousness, or subjective experience, begins in human development thus remains incompletely answered, though boundaries can be set using current knowledge from developmental neurobiology and recent investigations of the perinatal brain. Here, we offer our perspective on how the development of a sensory perturbation complexity index (sPCI) based on auditory (“beep-and-zip”) or visual (“flash-and-zip”) cortical perturbations in place of electromagnetic perturbations (“zap-and-zip”) might be used to address this question. First, we discuss recent studies of perinatal cognition and consciousness using techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG), and, in particular, magnetoencephalography (MEG). While newborn infants are the archetypal subjects for studying early human development, researchers may also benefit from fetal studies, as the womb is, in many respects, a more controlled environment than the cradle. The earliest possible timepoint when subjective experience might begin is likely the establishment of thalamocortical connectivity at 26 weeks gestation, as the thalamocortical system is necessary for consciousness according to most theoretical frameworks. To infer at what age and in which behavioral states consciousness might emerge following the initiation of thalamocortical pathways, we advocate for the development of the sPCI to estimate the perinatal brain’s state of consciousness.

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Maturation changes the excitability and effective connectivity of the frontal lobe: A developmental TMS–EEG study

Cited by 21 publications

References 138 publications

Age-related change in transient gamma band activity during working memory maintenance through adolescence

Age-related change in transient gamma band activity during working memory maintenance through adolescence

Lower myelin‐water content of the frontal lobe in childhood absence epilepsy

Not with a “zap” but with a “beep”: measuring the origins of perinatal experience

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