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Non-invasive Optical Measurement of Cerebral Metabolism and Hemodynamics in Infants
Published on: March 14, 2013
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Hemodynamic responses to emotional speech in two-month-old infants imaged using diffuse optical tomography
Shashank Shekhar1,2, Ambika Maria1, Kalle Kotilahti3
1University of Turku, Institute of Clinical Medicine, Turku Brain and Mind Center, FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study, Turku, Finland.
Scientific Reports
|March 22, 2019
Summary
Two-month-old infants show distinct brain responses to emotional speech. The temporo-parietal cortex is more sensitive to happy speech, suggesting early processing of positive emotions.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Infant Communication
Background:
- Emotional speech is crucial for human social interaction.
- Understanding early neural processing of emotions is vital for developmental insights.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the neural processing of various emotional speech types (happy, angry, sad, neutral) in infants.
- To identify brain regions involved in processing emotional vocalizations in early development.
Main Methods:
- Utilized diffuse optical tomography (DOT) on 21 two-month-old infants.
- Analyzed total hemoglobin (HbT) changes using adaptive voxel-based clustering and region-of-interest (ROI) analysis.
Main Results:
- A distributed happy > neutral response was observed in the temporo-parietal cortex, particularly the anterior temporal cortex.
- The superior temporal sulcus (STS) showed differential responses: neutral > angry and happy > angry.
- Negative HbT responses to emotional speech were noted in the temporo-parietal cortex.
Conclusions:
- The left STS is more sensitive to happy speech than angry speech in two-month-old infants.
- Infants' temporo-parietal cortex exhibits enhanced sensitivity to positive emotional stimuli.
- These findings highlight the role of specific brain regions in early emotional speech processing.
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