EEG Effective Source Projections Are More Bilaterally Symmetric in Infants Than in Adults

Abstract

Although anatomical brain hemispheric asymmetries have been clearly documented in the infant brain, findings concerning functional hemispheric specialization have been inconsistent. The present report aims to assess whether bilaterally symmetric synchronous activity between the two hemispheres is a characteristic of the infant brain. To asses cortical bilateral synchronicity, we used decomposition by independent component analysis (ICA) of high-density electroencephalographic (EEG) data collected in an auditory passive oddball paradigm. Decompositions of concatenated 64-channel EEG data epochs from each of 34 typically developing 6-month-old infants and from 18 healthy young adults participating in the same passive auditory oddball protocol were compared to characterize differences in functional brain organization between early life and adulthood. Our results show that infant EEG decompositions comprised a larger number of independent component (IC) effective source processes compatible with a cortical origin and having bilaterally near-symmetric scalp projections (13.8% of the infant data ICs presented a bilateral pattern vs. 4.3% of the adult data ICs). These IC projections could be modeled as the sum of potentials volume-conducted to the scalp from synchronous locally coherent field activities in corresponding left and right cortical source areas. To conclude, in this paradigm, source-resolved infant brain EEG exhibited more bilateral synchronicity than EEG produced by the adult brain, supporting the hypothesis that more strongly unilateral and likely more functionally specialized unihemispheric cortical field activities are concomitants of brain maturation.

Keywords: EEG; brain laterality; brain symmetry; development; functional brain organization; independent component analysis.