Abstract
Existing research in infants has correlated electroencephalography (EEG) measures of power and coherence to cognitive development and to locomotor experience, but only in infants older than 5 months of age. Our goal was to explore the relationship between EEG measures of power and coherence and motor skill development in younger infants who are developing reaching skill. Twenty-one infants with typical development between 38 and 203 days of age participated. Longitudinal EEG recording sessions were recorded in monthly increments, with 3–5 sessions acquired for 19 participants and 1 session for 2 participants, resulting in 71 sessions in total. EEG variables of interest were relative power in the 6–9 Hz range and coherence between selected electrode pairs. We describe the development of the peak in relative power in the 6–9 Hz frequency band of EEG; it is not present around 1 month of age and starts to appear across the following months. Coherence generally increased in the bilateral frontal-parietal networks, while the interhemispheric connectivity in motor cortices generally decreased. The results of this relatively small pilot study provide a foundational description of neural function changes observed as motor skills are changing across the first half year of life. This is a first step in understanding experience-dependent plasticity of the infant brain and has the potential to aid in the early detection of atypical brain development.
Highlights
Electroencephalography (EEG) power represents amount of activity in certain frequency bands of the signal while coherence between different electrodes reflects the degree to which connections are present across brain regions [1]
REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture) is a secure, web-based application designed to support data capture for research studies, providing 1) an intuitive interface for validated data entry; 2) audit trails for tracking data manipulation and export procedures; 3) automated export procedures for seamless data downloads to common statistical packages; and 4) procedures for importing data from external sources
Much work is left to be done, as little is known regarding the longitudinal development of measures like mu desynchronization, or how power, coherence, and mu desynchronization relate to our existing knowledge of motor, cognitive and social development.”. We have addressed this gap by longitudinally measuring EEG power and coherence in the mu frequency band across the development of arm reaching skill in infants 1–7 months of age
Summary
Electroencephalography (EEG) power represents amount of activity in certain frequency bands of the signal while coherence between different electrodes reflects the degree to which connections are present across brain regions [1]. Existing research in infants has correlated EEG measures of power and coherence to cognitive development and to locomotor experience, but only in infants older than 5 months of age. Changes in the power of the infant mu rhythm can be measured between 5 and 7 months of age [2], while alpha desynchronization prior to the initiation of an arm reach to grasp an offered toy can be observed in infants 9. REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture) is a secure, web-based application designed to support data capture for research studies, providing 1) an intuitive interface for validated data entry; 2) audit trails for tracking data manipulation and export procedures; 3) automated export procedures for seamless data downloads to common statistical packages; and 4) procedures for importing data from external sources. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
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