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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Activity level in left auditory cortex predicts behavioral performance in inhibition tasks in children

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Funding Information: We are grateful to Hanna-Maija Lapinkero, Suvi Karjalainen, Maria Vesterinen & Janne Rajaniemi for help with data collection and to Amit Jaiswal, Erkka Heinilä and Jukka Nenonen for their help with preprocessing and scripting. This work was supported by EU project ChildBrain (Horizon2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action (MSCA) Innovative Training Network (ITN) – European Training Network (ETN), grant agreement no. 641652) and the Academy of Finland grant number 311877. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 Sensory processing during development is important for the emerging cognitive skills underlying goal-directed behavior. Yet, it is not known how auditory processing in children is related to their cognitive functions. Here, we utilized combined magneto- and electroencephalographic (M/EEG) measurements in school-aged children (6-14y) to show that child auditory cortical activity at ∼250 ms after auditory stimulation predicts the performance in inhibition tasks. While unaffected by task demands, the amplitude of the left-hemisphere activation pattern was significantly correlated with the variability of behavioral response time. Since this activation pattern is typically not present in adults, our results suggest divergent brain mechanisms in adults and children for consistent performance in auditory-based cognitive tasks. This difference can be explained as a shift in cortical resources for cognitive control from sensorimotor associations in the auditory cortex of children to top–down regulated control processes involving (pre)frontal and cingulate areas in adults. Peer reviewed