The Emergence of Hierarchical Somatosensory Processing in Late Prematurity

The somatosensory system has a hierarchical organization. Information processing increases in complexity from the contralateral primary sensory cortex to bilateral association cortices and this is represented by a sequence of somatosensory-evoked potentials recorded with scalp electroencephalographies. The mammalian somatosensory system matures over the early postnatal period in a rostro-caudal progression, but little is known about the development of hierarchical information processing in the human infant brain. To investigate the normal human development of the somatosensory hierarchy, we recorded potentials evoked by mechanical stimulation of hands and feet in 34 infants between 34 and 42 weeks corrected gestational age, with median postnatal age of 3 days. We show that the shortest latency potential was evoked for both hands and feet at all ages with a contralateral somatotopic source in the primary somatosensory cortex (SI). However, the longer latency responses, localized in SI and beyond, matured with age. They gradually emerged for the foot and, although always present for the hand, showed a shift from purely contralateral to bilateral hemispheric activation. These results demonstrate the rostro-caudal development of human somatosensory hierarchy and suggest that the development of its higher tiers is complete only just before the time of normal birth.