Relative right versus left frontal EEG in neonates

Abstract

Although infants have been noted to have greater relative right or left frontal EEG as early as the neonatal period, other ways in which these newborns differ have not been reported. In this study, 48 newborns were divided on the basis of greater relative right versus greater relative left frontal EEG to determine whether these groups differed in other ways at the neonatal period including behavior, physiology, and biochemistry. We also were interested in whether these EEG patterns were related to any prenatal maternal variables including mood states (depression, anxiety, anger) and biochemistry as well as fetal activity. The greater relative right frontal EEG newborns had mothers with lower prenatal and postnatal serotonin and higher postnatal cortisol levels. The mothers of the greater relative right frontal EEG newborns also had greater relative right frontal EEG activation and lower vagal tone. The greater relative right frontal EEG newborns themselves had elevated cortisol levels, showed a greater number of state changes during sleep/wake behavior observations, and performed less optimally on the Brazelton Neonatal Behavior Assessment (T. B. Brazelton, 1973) including the habituation, motor, range of state, excitability, and depressive symptoms scales. These data suggest that greater relative right frontal EEG newborns may be at greater risk for developmental problems than those with greater relative left frontal EEG activation. In addition, a discriminant function analysis correctly classified 67% of the newborns' EEGs by prenatal maternal variables, suggesting that these might be used to target pregnant women for prenatal intervention.

Automated State Analyses: Proposed Applications to Neonatal Neurointensive Care

“…The preferred methodological approach was the fast-Fourier transform analysis, studied initially with fullterm neonates (Eiselt et al, 2001;Field et al, 2002;Ktonas et al, 1995;Lehtonen et al, 1998;Witte et al, 1997), followed by more recent reports in preterm infants (Eisalt et al, 1997;Holthausen et al, 2000;Kuhle et al, 2001;Myers et al, 1997;Sawaguchi et al, 1996;Schramm et al, 2000;Vanhatalo et al, 2002). Similar calculations, based primarily on assumptions of stationarity, were also described for specific neonatal and infant risk groups for sudden infant death syndrome (Schechtman et al, 1995), apnea (Schramm et al, 2000), hyperbilirubinemia (Gurses et al, 2002), white matter necrosis (Inder et al, 2003), and asphyxia (Hellström-Westas, 1992), applying power analyses to one particular physiologic behavior with little attention to the multiple neuronal networks that contemporaneously express state transitions.…”

Infant frontal asymmetry predicts child emotional availability

“…Henriques & Davidson, 1990) as well as infants of depressed mothers (e.g. Field, Diego, Hernandez-Reif, Schanberg & Kuhn, 2002) showed greater relatively right frontal EEG activation. A study investigating adults revealed that individuals with insecure attachment showed lower left frontal asymmetry (i.e.…”

Neonatal EEG/Sleep State Analyses: A Complex Phenotype of Developmental Neural Plasticity

“…Earlier investigations applied linear analyses to physiologic data sets without consideration of time-dependent nonlinear behaviors [33,[100][101][102][103][104][105][106][107] . Fast-Fourier transform was initially applied to studies of full-term neonates [108][109][110][111][112] followed by more recent reports in preterm infants [113][114][115][116][117][118][119][120][121][122] . These algorithms were also used to describe specific neonatal and infant risk groups, such as sudden infant death syndrome [123] , apnea [117,124] , hyperbilirubinemia [125] , white matter necrosis [126] , and asphyxia [127] .…”