Development of Emotional Face Processing in Premature and Full-Term Infants

The rate of premature births has increased in the past 2 decades. Ten percent of premature birth survivors develop motor impairment, but almost half exhibit later sensorial, cognitive, and emotional disabilities attributed to white matter injury and decreased volume of neuronal structures. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that premature and full-term infants differ in their development of emotional face processing. A comparative longitudinal study was conducted in premature and full-term infants at 4 and 8 months of age. The absolute power of the electroencephalogram was analyzed in both groups during 5 conditions of an emotional face processing task: positive, negative, neutral faces, non-face, and rest. Differences between the conditions of the task at 4 months were limited to rest versus non-rest comparisons in both groups. Eight-month-old term infants had increases ( P ≤ .05) in absolute power in the left occipital region at the frequency of 10.1 Hz and in the right occipital region at 3.5, 12.8, and 16.0 Hz when shown a positive face in comparison with a neutral face. They also showed increases in absolute power in the left occipital region at 1.9 Hz and in the right occipital region at 2.3 and 3.5 Hz with positive compared to non-face stimuli. In contrast, positive, negative, and neutral faces elicited the same responses in premature infants. In conclusion, our study provides electrophysiological evidence that emotional face processing develops differently in premature than in full-term infants, suggesting that premature birth alters mechanisms of brain development, such as the myelination process, and consequently affects complex cognitive functions.