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How to Obtain Reliable Visual Event-related Potentials in Newborns
Published on: October 24, 2019
Individual variability in neural correlates of visual engagement in premature toddlers
Haley Laughlin1, Anna Galvan1, Andrea Ortiz-Jimenez1
1University of Houston, United States.
Insights
Prematurity can affect brain development, potentially impacting visual engagement and attention in toddlers. Earlier birth is linked to altered neural activity patterns, suggesting a risk for future attention challenges.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Pediatrics
Background:
- Prematurity disrupts prenatal development, increasing risks for neurocognitive difficulties.
- Early visual engagement is crucial for development, but its relationship with prematurity and attention is unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the behavioral and neural aspects of visual engagement in toddlers born prematurely.
- To explore the link between early visual engagement patterns and later attention outcomes.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a computerized attention paradigm with stimuli varying in duration, location, and motion.
- Recorded electroencephalography (EEG) to measure alpha power, a neural marker of visual attention.
- Quantified visual engagement through looking time and alpha power changes from baseline.
Main Results:
- Higher parental education correlated with increased looking time.
- Gestational status did not significantly affect behavioral looking time.
- Gestational status influenced alpha power: earlier-born toddlers showed reduced alpha power differences between rest and engagement, possibly indicating delayed neural maturation.
Conclusions:
- Altered neural activity patterns in toddlers born prematurely may reflect disrupted maturation.
- These neural differences could represent a substrate for later attention difficulties.
- Further research is needed to understand the long-term implications of these findings.
Abstract:
Prematurity disrupts in-utero processes that support neurocognitive development, with children born preterm at increased risk for long-term difficulties. Little is known about how prematurity affects early development of neural systems supporting visual engagement, or whether early variability in engagement relates to later attention outcomes. The present study examined behavioral and neural correlates of visual engagement in toddlers born prematurely using a developmentally appropriate computerized attention paradigm, involving attention capturing stimuli varying in duration, location, and motion while EEG was recorded. Visual engagement based on looking time and alpha power, a neural marker of cortical activation modulated by visual attention, were quantified in response to task stimuli and a resting baseline. Toddlers whose parents reported higher education levels showed greater overall looking time to visual stimuli. There was not a significant effect of gestational status on this behavioral response. In contrast, gestational status was associated with greater alpha power during rest relative to visual engagement. Toddlers born closer to term showed a larger rest-engagement difference in alpha power, whereas toddlers born at earlier gestational ages showed a smaller difference driven by lower resting alpha. This pattern in earlier-born toddlers may reflect delayed or disrupted maturation of this neural signature and may represent a neural substrate of prospective attention difficulties.
