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A study of EEG coherence in DCD children during motor synchronization task
Pascale de Castelnau1, Jean-Michel Albaret, Yves Chaix
1EA 3691, Laboratoire Adaptation Perceptivo-Motrice et Apprentissage, UFR STAPS, Université Toulouse III, 118 route de Narbonne, 31062 Toulouse cedex 4, France.
Insights
Children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) show increased brain activity in motor regions, particularly in younger children. This suggests a compensatory mechanism for their coordination difficulties.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Motor Control
Background:
- Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) affects motor skills.
- The neural underpinnings of DCD, especially cortical motor region activity, require further investigation.
- Understanding age-related changes in DCD brain function is crucial.
Purpose of the Study:
- To test the hypothesis that DCD is linked to heightened cortical motor region coherence.
- To examine how this coherence changes with age in children with DCD.
- To explore the relationship between EEG coherence and motor task performance in DCD.
Main Methods:
- Electroencephalography (EEG) recorded from 48 children (24 DCD, 24 Controls) aged 8-13.
- Analysis of spectral EEG coherence in alpha and beta frequency bands.
- Children performed synchrony and syncopation tasks with a metronome.
Main Results:
- Youngest DCD children (8-9 years) exhibited increased intrahemispheric fronto-central EEG coherence compared to controls.
- This heightened coherence was observed during both rhythmic and syncopated tasks.
- No significant differences in interhemispheric coherence were found between DCD and control groups.
Conclusions:
- Increased fronto-central coherence in young DCD children may represent a compensatory strategy for motor planning deficits.
- This suggests a persistent difference in cortical motor region engagement in DCD.
- Findings highlight the role of pre-programming and perceptual-motor integration challenges in DCD.
Abstract:
This paper investigates the hypothesis that the coordination difficulties of DCD children are associated with an increased coherence in the cortical motor regions, which persists with age. Forty-eight children participated in the study (24 DCD and 24 Controls). Their ages ranged from 8 to 13 years, divided into three groups (8-9, 10-11, and 12-13 years old). Children were required to perform finger flexion or extension either in synchrony or in syncopation with a rhythmic metronome, while a 32-channel EEG was recorded. Along with stability measures of motor performance, we analyzed the spectral EEG coherence between intrahemispheric (left frontal/left central; left central/left parietal) and interhemispheric (left central/right central) sites. Spectral coherence assesses functional coupling between distant areas of the brain. Two frequency bands related to sensorimotor activation were chosen: alpha (8-12 Hz) and beta (12-30 Hz). The synchrony task was chosen as a rest condition against which the two syncopation conditions at 0.5 Hz and 1.3 Hz were contrasted. For intrahemispheric comparison, 8-9-year-old DCD children showed that coherence between fronto-central regions increased for both rhythms and conditions, as compared to controls. No difference was found for interhemispheric comparisons. As frontal sites are related to motor planning, our results suggest that youngest DCD children were forced to maintain a high level of pre-programming to compensate for the difficulties caused by the perceptual-motor requirements of the task in light of their coordination disorder.
