EEG correlates of anticipatory attention and target processing in children and adults during visual spatial attention

Jiaqi Wang; Xiaoli Guo; Ziping Xing; Guanghai Wang; Jingyi Wang; Jingyi Hu; Junfeng Sun; Chunbo Li; Shanbao Tong; Xiangfei Hong

doi:10.1016/j.physbeh.2023.114341

EEG correlates of anticipatory attention and target processing in children and adults during visual spatial attention

Physiol Behav. 2023 Nov 1:271:114341. doi: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2023.114341. Epub 2023 Sep 1.

Authors

Jiaqi Wang¹, Xiaoli Guo¹, Ziping Xing¹, Guanghai Wang², Jingyi Wang¹, Jingyi Hu¹, Junfeng Sun¹, Chunbo Li³, Shanbao Tong⁴, Xiangfei Hong⁵

Affiliations

¹ School of Biomedical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200240, China.
² Department of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Pediatric Translational Medicine Institute, Shanghai Children's Medical Center Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200092, China.
³ Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 600 Wan Ping Nan Road, Shanghai 200030, China; CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology (CEBSIT), Chinese Academy of Science, Shanghai 200030, China; Institute of Psychology and Behavioral Science, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200030, China.
⁴ School of Biomedical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200240, China. Electronic address: stong@sjtu.edu.cn.
⁵ Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 600 Wan Ping Nan Road, Shanghai 200030, China. Electronic address: hongxiangfei@gmail.com.

PMID: 37660775
DOI: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2023.114341

Abstract

The ability of attentional orienting has been suggested to keep developing throughout childhood. Electroencephalography (EEG) studies have shown that 6-10 year old children exhibit lateralized alpha-band (8-13 Hz) activity and event-related potentials (ERPs) that are classic markers of spatial attentional orienting in adults. However, the lack of a direct comparison of these EEG correlates between children and adults in the same experiment made it difficult to evaluate developmental effects on neural activity throughout attentional stages. This study aimed to directly compare cue-related alpha activity and ERPs for the anticipatory attention stage and target-related ERPs for the target processing stage between healthy children and adults. Participants, including 19 children (6-10 years) and 23 adults (18-34 years), successfully completed a visual spatial attention task, although children responded more slowly and less consistently than adults. Both age groups exhibited significant cue-related alpha lateralization and ERPs (EDAN, ADAN, and LDAP) during anticipatory attention and significant attentional modulation of target-related N1 during target processing. However, no significant difference was found in the magnitude of attentional modulation of these EEG correlates between children and adults. These findings suggest that the neural underpinnings of anticipatory attention and target processing during visual spatial attention could have been largely developed in 6-10 year old children.

Keywords: Alpha oscillations; Children; Development; Event-related potential; Selective attention.