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Updated: Nov 12, 2025
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Cortical Source Analysis of High-Density EEG Recordings in Children
Published on: June 30, 2014
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Attention recruits frontal cortex in human infants.
Cameron T Ellis1, Lena J Skalaban2, Tristan S Yates2
1Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511 cameron.ellis@yale.edu.
Summary
Infant attention networks, including frontal regions, are functional early in development. Brain imaging shows these areas activate similarly to adults when infants orient attention, even in the first year of life.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Infants learn by attending to salient stimuli.
- Adult attention involves frontal and parietal brain regions.
- Infant attention network maturity is not well understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- Investigate the neural basis of attention in young infants.
- Determine if adult attention networks are functional in early development.
- Understand how the infant brain allocates attention.
Main Methods:
- Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) on 20 infants (3-12 months old).
- Child-friendly attentional cuing task with valid, invalid, and neutral cues.
- Offline gaze coding to measure saccade latency.
Main Results:
- Infants exhibited faster reaction times to targets with valid cues.
- Attention network regions, especially frontal, showed greater activation for invalid cues.
- Behavioral and neural findings were consistent across infants aged 3-12 months.
Conclusions:
- Frontal and parietal attention networks are functional in early infancy.
- These brain regions support attention orienting from early in development.
- Infant attention mechanisms show early functional similarity to adults.
