Differences between human auditory event-related potentials (AERPs) measured at 2 and 4 months after birth

Marion I van den Heuvel; Renée A Otte; Marijke A K A Braeken; István Winkler; Elena Kushnerenko; Bea R H Van den Bergh

doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2015.04.003

Differences between human auditory event-related potentials (AERPs) measured at 2 and 4 months after birth

Int J Psychophysiol. 2015 Jul;97(1):75-83. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2015.04.003. Epub 2015 Apr 17.

Authors

Marion I van den Heuvel¹, Renée A Otte¹, Marijke A K A Braeken², István Winkler³, Elena Kushnerenko⁴, Bea R H Van den Bergh⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Developmental Psychology, Tilburg University, The Netherlands.
² Department of Developmental Psychology, Tilburg University, The Netherlands; REVAL Rehabilitation Research Center, Biomedical Research Institute, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, Hasselt University, Belgium.
³ Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, MTA, Budapest, Hungary; Institute of Psychology, University of Szeged, Hungary.
⁴ Institute for Research in Child Development, University of East London, United Kingdom.
⁵ Department of Developmental Psychology, Tilburg University, The Netherlands; Department of Psychology, Catholic University of Leuven - KU Leuven, Belgium; Department of Welfare, Public Health and Family, Flemish Government, Brussels, Belgium. Electronic address: Bea.vdnBergh@tilburguniversity.edu.

PMID: 25896714
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2015.04.003

Abstract

Infant auditory event-related potentials (AERPs) show a series of marked changes during the first year of life. These AERP changes indicate important advances in early development. The current study examined AERP differences between 2- and 4-month-old infants. An auditory oddball paradigm was delivered to infants with a frequent repetitive tone and three rare auditory events. The three rare events included a shorter than the regular inter-stimulus interval (ISI-deviant), white noise segments, and environmental sounds. The results suggest that the N250 infantile AERP component emerges during this period in response to white noise but not to environmental sounds, possibly indicating a developmental step towards separating acoustic deviance from contextual novelty. The scalp distribution of the AERP response to both the white noise and the environmental sounds shifted towards frontal areas and AERP peak latencies were overall lower in infants at 4 than at 2 months of age. These observations indicate improvements in the speed of sound processing and maturation of the frontal attentional network in infants during this period.

Keywords: Auditory attention; Auditory event-related potential; Cognitive development; Infancy; Oddball paradigm.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Age Factors
Attention / physiology
Auditory Perception / physiology*
Child Development / physiology*
Evoked Potentials, Auditory / physiology*
Female
Frontal Lobe / physiology*
Humans
Infant
Male