0000000000364777
AUTHOR
Vineta Fellman
Could audiovisual training be used to improve cognition in extremely low birth weight children?
Aim: To study whether a dyslexia remediation programme, Audilex, improves cognition in extremely low birth (ELBW) children. Methods: Six-year-old ELBW children were allocated to a 5-week training with Audilex or playing control computer games. Before and after intervention, auditory event-related brain potentials (ERP) to sound changes were recorded and reading related skills assessed. Primary outcome was the mismatch negativity (MMN) component of ERP. Secondary outcomes were Audilex Test (ability to perform the Audilex games), the reading skills after the intervention and 2 years later. Of eligible children, 39 (54%) consented and 22 (30%) completed the protocol. Results: The MMN responses…
Statistical language learning in neonates revealed by event-related brain potentials
Abstract Background Statistical learning is a candidate for one of the basic prerequisites underlying the expeditious acquisition of spoken language. Infants from 8 months of age exhibit this form of learning to segment fluent speech into distinct words. To test the statistical learning skills at birth, we recorded event-related brain responses of sleeping neonates while they were listening to a stream of syllables containing statistical cues to word boundaries. Results We found evidence that sleeping neonates are able to automatically extract statistical properties of the speech input and thus detect the word boundaries in a continuous stream of syllables containing no morphological cues. …
Perinatal cerebral insults alter auditory event-related potentials.
Background: Auditory event-related potentials (AERPs) can be used as indices of neural information processing. Altered AERPs have been reported in children and young adults with frontal lobe infarction. Aim: To test the hypothesis that perinatal brain injury affects cortical auditory processing. Methods: We assessed AERPs at term. 6 and 12 months of age in preterm infants [n = 9. median gestational age (GA) 27.9, range 23.9-30.0 wk], term infants with perinatal intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) [n = 5, GA 40.3, range 37.4-42.3 wk], and term infants with perinatal asphyxia In [n = 4. GA 39.4. range 37.9-40.3 wk]. Healthy preterm (n = 16) and term infants (n = 22) served as controls. A harmonic …
Auditory event-related potentials at preschool age in children born very preterm.
Abstract Objective To assess auditory event-related potentials at preschool age in children born very preterm (VP, 27.4±1.9 gestational weeks, n =70) with a high risk of cognitive dysfunction. Methods We used an oddball paradigm consisting of a standard tone randomly replaced by one of three infrequent deviants (differing in frequency, sound direction or duration). Results The P1 and N2 latencies were inversely correlated to age (50–63months) both in VP ( r =−0.451, p r =−0.305, p= 0.01, respectively) and term born controls (TC; n =15). VP children had smaller P1 than near-term ( n =12) or TC (1.70±0.17μV vs 2.68±0.41 and 2.92±0.43, respectively; p Conclusions Our data suggest a fast matura…
Newborn infants' auditory system is sensitive to Western music chord categories
Neural encoding of abstract rules in the audition of newborn infants has been recently demonstrated in several studies using event-related potentials (ERPs). In the present study the neural encoding of Western music chords was investigated in newborn infants. Using ERPs, we examined whether the categorizations of major vs. minor and consonance vs. dissonance are present at the level of the change-related mismatch response (MMR). Using an oddball paradigm, root minor, dissonant and inverted major chords were presented in a context of consonant root major chords. The chords were transposed to several different frequency levels, so that the deviant chords did not include a physically deviant f…
Hemodynamic responses to speech and music in newborn infants
We used near‐infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to study responses to speech and music on the auditory cortices of 13 healthy full‐term newborn infants during natural sleep. The purpose of the study was to investigate the lateralization of speech and music responses at this stage of development. NIRS data was recorded from eight positions on both hemispheres simultaneously with electroencephalography, electrooculography, electrocardiography, pulse oximetry, and inclinometry. In 11 subjects, statistically significant (P < 0.02) oxygenated (HbO(2)) and total hemoglobin (HbT) responses were recorded. Both stimulus types elicited significant HbO(2) and HbT responses on both hemispheres in five subjec…
A spontaneous mitonuclear epistasis converging on Rieske Fe-S protein exacerbates complex III deficiency in mice
We previously observed an unexpected fivefold (35 vs. 200 days) difference in the survival of respiratory chain complex III (CIII) deficient Bcs1lp.S78G mice between two congenic backgrounds. Here, we identify a spontaneous homoplasmic mtDNA variant (m.G14904A, mt-Cybp.D254N), affecting the CIII subunit cytochrome b (MT-CYB), in the background with short survival. We utilize maternal inheritance of mtDNA to confirm this as the causative variant and show that it further decreases the low CIII activity in Bcs1lp.S78G tissues to below survival threshold by 35 days of age. Molecular dynamics simulations predict D254N to restrict the flexibility of MT-CYB ef loop, potentially affecting RISP dyna…