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. 2019 Apr:36:100638.
doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2019.100638. Epub 2019 Mar 12.

Infant brain responses to social sounds: A longitudinal functional near-infrared spectroscopy study

Nicole M McDonald  1 , Katherine L Perdue  2 , Jeffrey Eilbott  3 , Jaspreet Loyal  4 , Frederick Shic  5 , Kevin A Pelphrey  6
Affiliations

Infant brain responses to social sounds: A longitudinal functional near-infrared spectroscopy study

Nicole M McDonald et al. Dev Cogn Neurosci. 2019 Apr.

Abstract

Infants are responsive to and show a preference for human vocalizations from very early in development. While previous studies have provided a strong foundation of understanding regarding areas of the infant brain that respond preferentially to social vs. non-social sounds, how the infant brain responds to sounds of varying social significance over time, and how this relates to behavior, is less well understood. The current study uniquely examined longitudinal brain responses to social sounds of differing social-communicative value in infants at 3 and 6 months of age using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). At 3 months, infants showed similar patterns of widespread activation in bilateral temporal cortices to communicative and non-communicative human non-speech vocalizations, while by 6 months infants showed more similar, and focal, responses to social sounds that carried increased social value (infant-directed speech and human non-speech communicative sounds). In addition, we found that brain activity at 3 months of age related to later brain activity and receptive language abilities as measured at 6 months. These findings suggest areas of consistency and change in auditory social perception between 3 and 6 months of age.

Keywords: Auditory stimuli; Brain development; Infancy; Social perception; fNIRS.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Infant fNIRS optode configuration and headgear on an infant at 3 and 6 months old. This image provides an approximate mapping of the placement of the fNIRS channels, but does not represent precisely where they are placed on an infant’s head (6-month template displayed). Regions: ANT = Anterior. SUP = Superior. POST = Posterior. INF = Inferior.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Grand average waveforms by age and region. Hb = Hemoglobin. HbO = Oxygenated hemoglobin. HbR = Deoxygenated hemoglobin. HbT = Total hemoglobin.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Channels with significant change in HbO across condition and time. Results based upon one-sample t-tests (FDR-corrected p <  .05). Channels with significant increase in HbO at 10-15 s post-stimulus presentation depicted for left and right lateral arrays. Channels with significant decrease in HbO at 5–10 s post-stimulus depicted for frontal array (frontal data not collected at 3 months). LH = Left hemisphere. RH = Right hemisphere. H-NonC = Human non-communicative sounds. H-Comm = Human communicative sounds. IDS = Infant-directed speech.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Depiction of age x hemisphere x condition interaction (p =  .023) in the inferior region from the lateral arrays. HbO = Oxygenated hemoglobin. H-NonC = Human non-communicative speech. H-Comm = Human communicative speech. IDS = Infant-directed speech.
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Negative correlation between HbO response to IDS at 3 months and receptive language score at 6 months. MSEL = Mullen Scales of Early Learning. HbO = Oxygenated hemoglobin. IDS = Infant-directed speech.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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