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Tag Archives: Neurodevelopmental Neuroscience
Fr-084-MRI co-registration of infant fNIRS data: comparing the use of individual MRIs versus age-specific MRI templates.
fNIRS is a useful tool to investigate infant brain development. A limitation of fNIRS is spatially localising the signal in the cortex. A solution is MRI co-registration. Yet, research has not compared the use of individual versus template anatomy. 142 infants took part in an fNIRS and MRI session in India. Four analyses were run: a channel-based analysis, an analysis with participants’ individual MRIs, and two analyses using Indian and American age-specific templates. Results showed the template-based registration yielded more significant clusters. This seems due to differences in brain tissue properties across analyses, arguing for standardisation in infant fNIRS analysis. Continue reading
Sa-104-Exploring the Effect of Pregnancy Related Anxiety on Newborns’ Responses to Social Stimuli: Insights from High-Density Diffuse Optical Tomography
The Perinatal Imaging Project in partnership with families (PIPKIN) investigates the impact of family context on infant brain development. Preliminary results from a task using high-density optical tomography show that the emergence of vocal selectivity in infants is influenced by maternal pregnancy-related anxiety. These findings underscore the importance of assessing maternal mental health in understanding early brain development and emphasize the need for longitudinal studies focusing on the immediate postnatal period that might help disentangle the potential effect of pre- and postnatal contextual factors affecting functional brain development. Continue reading
Su-096-Infants’ Motor System Responses to Beat Structure in Sound Sequences
Beat perception plays a critical role in both speech and music processing. The present study explored its developmental origin via investigating infants’ localized neural responses to temporally structured auditory stimulation using fNIRS. We measured activity in the Supplementary Motor Area (SMA), a region implicated in timing prediction in adults, while infants listened to beat and non-beat sound sequences. We hypothesized a stronger activation for beat compared to non-beat sequences. Our findings revealed increased SMA activity for beat sequences. Furthermore, this effect was more pronounced in infants older than 9 months than younger infants, suggesting a developmental progression in beat perception. Continue reading
Su-022-High Density Diffuse Optical Tomography Reveals Differential Associations of Functional Connectivity During Motor Observation and Imitation with Social Reciprocity
We use high-density diffuse optical tomography to investigate brain activity during motor imitation and observation in neurotypical adults. To address the potential variability caused by individual differences in functional organization of the brain and spatial variation resulting from atlas-based head modeling, we use independent component analysis with reference (ICA-R). Subject-specific spatiotemporal components of brain function derived using ICA-R exhibited differential functional connectivity (FC) patterns during motor observation and imitation. The FC between specific components correlated with ratings of social reciprocity core to autism presentation. Continue reading
Vi-032-Validity of visual processing assessed by fNIRS as a potential biomarker in Neuroscience: systematic evaluation of measure reliability
The temporal reproducibility of fNIRS signals is a crucial issue for establishing its validity as a potential biomarker of brain function. Here, our objective is to systematically evaluate the reliability of a newly standardized fNIRS procedure for measuring visual-evoked hemodynamic responses (vHDR) in the occipital cortex. To validate the consistency of the vHDR metric, we conducted a test-retest study involving a cohort of 50 healthy adults at three different time points. Additionally, we explored the circadian variability of the vHDR metric. Our findings reinforce previous literature highlighting the potential utility of fNIRS in the biomarker domain. Continue reading
Su-030-Detection of infant emotion regulation mechanisms during Still-Face Paradigm via fNIRS
Understanding the barely explored neural underpinnings of infant emotion regulation (ER) would not only broaden our understanding of infant neurodevelopment, but also holds implication for how to target the development of ER to decrease development of psychopathology. The Still Face Paradigm provides structure while still enabling natural response of the infant, making it an ideal tool in combination with fNIRS to evoke and detect infant ER mechanisms. In our novel work employing these tools, we observe preliminary functional response at the onset of Phase 2. Continue reading
Sa-017-Neural mechanism of multisensory integration in postnatal life: from EEG to fNIRS evidence
Previous evidence showed that even at birth, multisensory integration (MSI) is spatially organized, as evidenced by enhanced electrophysiological responses when stimuli occur near the body, pinpointing the early ability to localize the bodily-self in space1. Here, to unveil the neural correlates supporting the emergence of bodily-self representation early in life, we aim to adapt the previously employed EEG task in an fNIRS version. Continue reading
Sa-077-Investigating newborns’ representations of language prosody with NIRS-EEG
In this work, we employ concurrent NIRS and EEG to investigate newborns’ neural mechanisms underlying the processing of speech and animal vocalizations. Continue reading
Sa-026-Comparative analysis of speech prosody processing in awake and sleeping infants
This study investigates cortical processing of speech prosody in awake and sleeping 3-month-old infants using an fNIRS system. Significant oxygenated hemoglobin (oxy-Hb) changes were observed in several regions for both states, with the right temporo-parietal region showing pronounced activation in response to normal speech. Our findings confirm its crucial role in pitch processing and highlight state-dependent functional variations in the frontal and occipital regions. Continue reading
Fr-072-Effects of Maternal Anxiety on Infant Learning Under Uncertainty
The cognitive development of a child can be drastically influenced by a mother's post-natal anxiety levels, particularly affecting their ability to adapt to a changing environment. In this study, we investigated the responses of infants in probabilistic associative learning (PLA) using high-density diffuse optical tomography (HD-DOT). Through the integration of gaze-tracking and HD-DOT at the trial level, we were able to identify adult-like responses to surprises, or prediction errors, in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). Additionally, we found that differences in infants' cortical responses were correlated with post-natal maternal anxiety levels. Continue reading