Synchronizing with the rhythm : Infant neural entrainment to complex musical and speech stimuli

Copyright © 2022 Cantiani, Dondena, Molteni, Riva and Piazza..

Neural entrainment is defined as the process whereby brain activity, and more specifically neuronal oscillations measured by EEG, synchronize with exogenous stimulus rhythms. Despite the importance that neural oscillations have assumed in recent years in the field of auditory neuroscience and speech perception, in human infants the oscillatory brain rhythms and their synchronization with complex auditory exogenous rhythms are still relatively unexplored. In the present study, we investigate infant neural entrainment to complex non-speech (musical) and speech rhythmic stimuli; we provide a developmental analysis to explore potential similarities and differences between infants' and adults' ability to entrain to the stimuli; and we analyze the associations between infants' neural entrainment measures and the concurrent level of development. 25 8-month-old infants were included in the study. Their EEG signals were recorded while they passively listened to non-speech and speech rhythmic stimuli modulated at different rates. In addition, Bayley Scales were administered to all infants to assess their cognitive, language, and social-emotional development. Neural entrainment to the incoming rhythms was measured in the form of peaks emerging from the EEG spectrum at frequencies corresponding to the rhythm envelope. Analyses of the EEG spectrum revealed clear responses above the noise floor at frequencies corresponding to the rhythm envelope, suggesting that - similarly to adults - infants at 8 months of age were capable of entraining to the incoming complex auditory rhythms. Infants' measures of neural entrainment were associated with concurrent measures of cognitive and social-emotional development.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2022

Erschienen:

2022

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:13

Enthalten in:

Frontiers in psychology - 13(2022) vom: 15., Seite 944670

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Cantiani, Chiara [VerfasserIn]
Dondena, Chiara [VerfasserIn]
Molteni, Massimo [VerfasserIn]
Riva, Valentina [VerfasserIn]
Piazza, Caterina [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

EEG
Infants
Journal Article
Music
Neural entrainment
Speech
Steady-state evoked potentials (SS-EP)

Anmerkungen:

Date Revised 08.11.2022

published: Electronic-eCollection

Citation Status PubMed-not-MEDLINE

doi:

10.3389/fpsyg.2022.944670

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM348514085