scholarly journals Anatomo-functional correlates of auditory development in infancy

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Parvaneh Adibpour ◽  
Jessica Lebenberg ◽  
Claire Kabdebon ◽  
Ghislaine Dehaene-Lambertz ◽  
Jessica Dubois

AbstractBrain development incorporates several intermingled mechanisms throughout infancy leading to intense and asynchronous maturation across cerebral networks and functional modalities. Combining electroencephalography (EEG) and diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), previous studies in the visual modality showed that the functional maturation of the event-related potentials (ERP) during the first postnatal semester relates to structural changes in the corresponding white matter pathways. Here we aimed to investigate similar issues in the auditory modality. We measured ERPs to syllables in 1-to 6-month-old infants and analyzed them in relation with the maturational properties of underlying neural substrates measured with diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). We first observed a decrease in the latency of the auditory P2, and a decrease of diffusivities in the auditory tracts and perisylvian regions with age. Secondly, we highlighted some of the early functional and structural substrates of lateralization. Contralateral responses to monoaural syllables were stronger and faster than ipsilateral responses, particularly in the left hemisphere. Besides, the acoustic radiations, arcuate fasciculus, middle temporal and angular gyri showed DTI asymmetries with a more complex and advanced microstructure in the left hemisphere, whereas the reverse was observed for the inferior frontal and superior temporal gyri. Finally, after accounting for the age-related variance, we correlated the inter-individual variability in P2 responses and in the microstructural properties of callosal fibers and inferior frontal regions. This study combining dedicated EEG and MRI approaches in infants highlights the complex relation between the functional responses to auditory stimuli and the maturational properties of the corresponding neural network.

Author(s):  
Elizabeth R Paitel ◽  
Kristy A Nielson

Aging is accompanied by frontal lobe and non-dominant hemisphere recruitment that supports executive functioning, such as inhibitory control, which is crucial to all cognitive functions. Yet, the spatio-temporal sequence of processing underlying successful inhibition and how it changes with age is understudied. Thus, we assessed N200 (conflict monitoring) and P300 (response inhibition, performance evaluation) event-related potentials (ERPs) in young and healthy older adults during comparably performed successful stop-signal inhibition. We additionally interrogated the continuous spatio-temporal dynamics of N200- and P300-related activation within each group. Young adults had left hemisphere dominant N200, while older adults had overall larger amplitudes and right hemisphere dominance. N200 activation was biphasic in both groups but differed in scalp topography. P300 also differed, with larger right amplitudes in young, but bilateral amplitudes in old, with old larger than young in the left hemisphere. P300 was characterized by an early parieto-occipital peak in both groups, followed by a parietal slow wave only in older adults. A temporally similar but topographically different final wave followed in both groups that showed anterior recruitment in older adults. These findings illuminate differential age-related spatio-temporal recruitment patterns for conflict monitoring and response inhibition that are critically important for understanding age-related compensatory activation.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Paula Soares ◽  
Francisco-Javier Gutiérrez-Domínguez ◽  
Alexandrina Lages ◽  
Helena M. Oliveira ◽  
Margarida Vasconcelos ◽  
...  

Abstract Statistical learning (SL), the ability to pick up regularities in the sensory environment, is a fundamental skill that allows us to structure the world in a regular and predictable way. Although extensive evidence has been gathered from children and adults, the changes that SL might undergo throughout development remain contentious, particularly in the auditory modality (aSL) with linguistic materials. Here, we collected Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) while 5 years-old children and young adults (university students) were exposed to a complex speech stream in which eight three-syllable nonsense words - four with high (1.0) and four with low (.50) transitional probabilities were embedded to further examine how aSL works under less predictable conditions and to enhance age-related differences in the neural correlates of aSL. Moreover, to ascertain how previous knowledge of the to-be-learned regularities might also affect the results, participants performed the aSL task, firstly, under implicit and, subsequently, under explicit conditions. Although behavioral signs of aSL were observed only for adult participants, ERP data showed evidence of aSL in both groups, as indexed by modulations in the N100 and N400 components. A detailed analysis of the neural responses suggests, however, that adults and children rely on different mechanisms to assist aSL.


2013 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
István Sulykos ◽  
Krisztina Kecskés-Kovács ◽  
István Czigler

The possibility of reactivation of the memory representation underlying visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) was investigated in a modified passive roving-standard paradigm. Stimuli (arrays of Gábor patches) were presented in sequences with blank interval between the sequences. The first member of each sequence was identical to the standard of the previous sequence, while the second stimulus had different orientation therefore the second stimulus was considered as deviant. In a control condition the stimuli of the previous sequence had random orientations. Event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to the deviants were compared to ERPs in response to the (physically identical) second stimulus of the control sequences. The comparison showed emergence of a positive component at an early (98–132 ms) latency range elicited by deviants. This component is interpreted as an index of increased sensitivity to rare changes in sequences dominated by identical stimuli rather than a component specific to violation of sequential regularity. Consequently, contrary to the findings in the auditory modality, the first stimulus of the sequence did not reactivate the memory representation underlying the vMMN, since subsequent deviant elicited no vMMN.


2002 ◽  
Vol 13 (01) ◽  
pp. 001-013 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Jerger ◽  
Rebecca Estes

We studied auditory evoked responses to the apparent movement of a burst of noise in the horizontal plane. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured in three groups of participants: children in the age range from 9 to 12 years, young adults in the age range from 18 to 34 years, and seniors in the age range from 65 to 80 years. The topographic distribution of grand-averaged ERP activity was substantially greater over the right hemisphere in children and seniors but slightly greater over the left hemisphere in young adults. This finding may be related to age-related differences in the extent to which judgments of sound movement are based on displacement versus velocity information.


1991 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Neville ◽  
Janet L. Nicol ◽  
Andrew Barss ◽  
Kenneth I. Forster ◽  
Merrill F. Garrett

Theoretical considerations and diverse empirical data from clinical, psycholinguistic, and developmental studies suggest that language comprehension processes are decomposable into separate subsystems, including distinct systems for semantic and grammatical processing. Here we report that event-related potentials (ERPs) to syntactically well-formed but semantically anomalous sentences produced a pattern of brain activity that is distinct in timing and distribution from the patterns elicited by syntactically deviant sentences, and further, that different types of syntactic deviance produced distinct ERP patterns. Forty right-handed young adults read sentences presented at 2 words/sec while ERPs were recorded from over several positions between and within the hemispheres. Half of the sentences were semantically and grammatically acceptable and were controls for the remainder, which contained sentence medial words that violated (1) semantic expectations, (2) phrase structure rules, or (3) WH-movement constraints on Specificity and (4) Subjacency. As in prior research, the semantic anomalies produced a negative potential, N400, that was bilaterally distributed and was largest over posterior regions. The phrase structure violations enhanced the N125 response over anterior regions of the left hemisphere, and elicited a negative response (300-500 msec) over temporal and parietal regions of the left hemisphere. Violations of Specificity constraints produced a slow negative potential, evident by 125 msec, that was also largest over anterior regions of the left hemisphere. Violations of Subjacency constraints elicited a broadly and symmetrically distributed positivity that onset around 200 msec. The distinct timing and distribution of these effects provide biological support for theories that distinguish between these types of grammatical rules and constraints and more generally for the proposal that semantic and grammatical processes are distinct subsystems within the language faculty.


2009 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 577-586 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonino Vallesi ◽  
Donald T. Stuss ◽  
Anthony R. McIntosh ◽  
Terence W. Picton

1998 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sönke Johannes ◽  
Michael E. Jöbges ◽  
Reinhard Dengler ◽  
Thomas F. Münte

In the auditory modality, there has been a considerable debate about some aspects of cortical disorders, especially about auditory forms of agnosia. Agnosia refers to an impaired comprehension of sensory information in the absence of deficits in primary sensory processes. In the non-verbal domain, sound agnosia and amusia have been reported but are frequently accompanied by language deficits whereas pure deficits are rare. Absolute pitch and musicians’ musical abilities have been associated with left hemispheric functions. We report the case of a right handed sound engineer with the absolute pitch who developed sound agnosia and amusia in the absence of verbal deficits after a right perisylvian stroke. His disabilities were assessed with the Seashore Test of Musical Functions, the tests of Wertheim and Botez (Wertheim and Botez, Brain 84, 1961, 19–30) and by event-related potentials (ERP) recorded in a modified 'oddball paradigm’. Auditory ERP revealed a dissociation between the amplitudes of the P3a and P3b subcomponents with the P3b being reduced in amplitude while the P3a was undisturbed. This is interpreted as reflecting disturbances in target detection processes as indexed by the P3b. The findings that contradict some aspects of current knowledge about left/right hemispheric specialization in musical processing are discussed and related to the literature concerning cortical auditory disorders.


Author(s):  
Robert West

Life is filled with goals or intentions that people hope to realize. Some of these are rather mundane (e.g., remembering to purchase a key ingredient for a recipe when stopping at the market), while others are more significant (e.g., remembering to pick up one’s child from school at the end of the day). Prospective memory represents the ability to form and then realize intentions at an appropriate time. A fundamental aspect of prospective memory is that one is engaged in one or more tasks (i.e., ongoing activities) between the formation of an intention and the opportunity to realize the goal. For instance, in the shopping example, one might form the intention at home and then travel to the market and collect several other items before walking past the desired ingredient. Considerable research has demonstrated that the efficiency of prospective memory declines with age, although age-related differences are not universal. The neurocognitive processes underpinning age-related differences in the formation and realization of delayed intentions have been investigated in studies using event-related brain potentials. This research reveals that age-related differences in prospective memory arise from the disruption of neural systems supporting the successful encoding of intentions, the detection of prospective memory cues, and possibly processes supporting the retrieval of intentions from memory when a cue is encountered or efficiently shifting from the ongoing activity to the prospective element of the task. Therefore, strategies designed to ameliorate age-related declines in prospective memory should target a variety of processes engaged during the encoding, retrieval, and enactment of delayed intentions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Seçkin Arslan ◽  
Katerina Palasis ◽  
Fanny Meunier

Abstract This study reports on an event-related potentials experiment to uncover whether per-millisecond electrophysiological brain activity and analogous behavioural responses are age-sensitive when comprehending anaphoric (referent-first) and cataphoric (pronoun-first) pronouns. Two groups of French speakers were recruited (young n = 18; aged 19–35 and older adults n = 15; aged 57–88) to read sentences where the anaphoric/cataphoric pronouns and their potential referents either matched or mismatched in gender. Our findings indicate that (1) the older adults were not less accurate or slower in their behavioural responses to the mismatches than the younger adults, (2) both anaphoric and cataphoric conditions evoked a central/parietally distributed P600 component with similar timing and amplitude in both the groups. Importantly, mean amplitudes of the P600 effect were modulated by verbal short-term memory span in the older adults but not in the younger adults, (3) nevertheless, the older but not the younger adults displayed an additional anterior negativity emerging on the frontal regions in response to the anaphoric mismatches. These results suggest that pronoun processing is resilient in healthy ageing individuals, but that functional recruitment of additional brain regions, evidenced with the anterior negativity, compensates for increased processing demands in the older adults’ anaphora processing.


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