Attentional system of very prematurely born preschoolers

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Developmental Psychology
• Pediatrics

Background:

• Premature birth is linked to cognitive and behavioral issues in children.
• These issues may stem from atypical development of the attentional system.
• It is unclear if prematurity impacts the entire attention system or specific components.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the attentional system efficiency in very preterm children and full-term controls at 5 years of age.
• To investigate selective deficits within the orienting, alerting, and executive networks of attention.

Main Methods:

• Utilized the Attention Network Task-Child Version (ANT-C) for assessment.
• Compared performance between a cohort of very preterm children and age-matched full-term controls.
• Evaluated the efficiency of three distinct attentional networks: orienting, alerting, and executive.

Main Results:

• Very preterm children demonstrated significantly less efficient orienting of attention compared to full-term peers.
• No significant group differences were observed in the efficiency of the alerting or executive attention networks.
• This indicates a selective impairment in the orienting component of attention.

Conclusions:

• Very preterm children exhibit a specific deficit in the orienting of attention at 5 years of age.
• The underlying reasons for this selective inefficiency require further investigation.
• Neural substrates of the orienting attention network may be particularly vulnerable to developmental delays following premature birth.