Altered evoked responses for motor-related words in children with upper limb motor impairments
Dimitri Bredikhin1, Olga Agranovich2, Maxim Ulanov1
1Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, National Research University Higher School of Economics, 101000 Moscow, Russia.
Insights
Children with obstetric brachial plexus palsy (OBPP) and amyoplasia, conditions causing limited upper limb mobility, show altered brain responses to hand-related verbs. This supports the embodied cognition theory, linking motor impairments to cognitive processing.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Obstetric brachial plexus palsy (OBPP) and amyoplasia cause significant upper limb mobility limitations.
- Embodied cognition theories suggest motor impairments can affect cognitive functions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if children with OBPP/amyoplasia exhibit altered processing of motor-related verbs.
- To explore the link between motor impairments and cognitive processing in these children.
Main Methods:
- A case-control study comparing 27 children with OBPP/amyoplasia to 32 healthy controls.
- Utilized mismatch negativity (MMN) EEG responses to auditory stimuli: limb-related verbs and pseudowords.
- Analyzed differences in MMN waveforms and peak latency.
Main Results:
- OBPP/amyoplasia children showed distinct MMN waveforms in frontal and temporal electrodes for hand-related verbs compared to controls.
- A significant delay in MMN peak latency was observed in OBPP/amyoplasia children for hand-related verbs.
- No significant differences were found for leg-related verbs or pseudowords.
Conclusions:
- Children with OBPP/amyoplasia demonstrate altered processing of hand-related verbs, correlating with their motor disabilities.
- Findings support embodied cognition, indicating that bodily experiences shape cognitive functions.
Objective:
Obstetric brachial plexus palsy (OBPP) and amyoplasia, the classical type of arthrogryposis multiplex congenita, manifest themselves as highly limited mobility of the upper limb. At the same time, according to the embodiment cognition theories, the motor impairments might lead to the alteration of cognitive functions in OBPP/amyoplasia patients. In the current study, we examined whether OBPP/amyoplasia children exhibit altered processing of motor-related verbs.
Methods:
We conducted a case-control study using clinical population and control children. Oddball series were used to elicit mismatch negativity (MMN) EEG responses. The series consisted of limb-related verbs (deviant stimuli) and matched pseudowords (standard stimuli). 27 patients and 32 control children were included in the analysis.
Results:
We showed that MMN waveforms differed between OBPP/amyoplasia children and their control peers in the frontal and temporal electrodes when the stimuli contained hand-related verbs. In particular, the MMN peak latency in the OBPP/amyoplasia children was significantly delayed as compared with the healthy controls. At the same time, neither series with leg-related verbs nor series of pseudowords resulted in statistically significant differences.
Conclusions:
Our findings suggest altered processing of hand-related verbs in OBPP/amyoplasia children with hand-related disabilities.
Significance:
Our results contribute to the growing evidence in support of the theory of embodied cognition, which proposes that various domains of cognition are shaped by bodily interactions with the environment.
