Child specific activation in left auditory cortex predicts behavioral performance in inhibition tasks

Abstract

19Sensory processing during development is important for the emerging cognitive skills 20 underlying goal-directed behavior. Yet, it is not known how auditory processing in children is 21 related to their cognitive functions. Here, we utilized combined magneto-and 22 electroencephalographic (M/EEG) measurements to show that child-unique auditory cortical 23 activity at ~250 ms after auditory stimulation predicts the performance in inhibition tasks. 24 While unaffected by task demands, the amplitude of the left-hemisphere response was 25 significantly correlated with the variability of behavioral response time. Since this response 26 is not present in adults, our results suggest divergent brain mechanisms in adults and 27 children for consistent performance in auditory-based cognitive tasks. This difference can be 28 explained as a shift in cognitive control functionality from sensorimotor associations in the 29 auditory cortex of children to top-down regulated control processes involving (pre)frontal 30 and cingulate areas in adults. 31 32 33 101In this study, we investigated the later, sustained response in the child brain. More 102 specifically, we explored its developmental trajectory in a cross-sectional design and its 103 sensitivity to task manipulations by varying attentional and inhibitory demands. Most 104 importantly, to improve our understanding of its functional significance, we explored how 105 much this response explained behavioral performance measures of inhibition and attention. In 106 the present study, 78 typically developing children and 16 adults completed three variations of 107 a simple auditory oddball paradigm; a passive oddball task, an active oddball task (press button 108 for deviant tone) and a Go/No-go task (press button for standard tone). 109 We combined M/EEG recordings and individual MRI's to achieve maximal 110 sensitivity to the spatiotemporal characteristics of maturation-specific activation patterns 111 (Sharon et al., 2007). A combination of M/EEG is uniquely suitable to extract the separate 112 components from the time-varying activation pattern evoked by auditory stimuli, and adding 113 individuals MRI's increases the accuracy of localizing the underlying cortical generators. 114 Importantly for our purpose, while MEG is more sensitive to hemispheric differences, EEG 115 provides a better account of deeper (e.g. cingulate cortex) and radial sources (Baillet, 2017; 116 Gross, 2019).117 118 Materials and Methods 119 120 Participants 121 122 Participants were Finnish speaking school children (6-14 years) recruited through schools and 123 the National Registry of Finland, and Finnish speaking adults. None of the participants had 124neurological disorders or were on medication affecting the central nervous system. In total, 78 125 children and 16 adults participated in this study. Of the 78 children, eleven were excluded: one 126 did not finish the experiment and one had too many errors in the MEG task (>50% errors in at 127 least one block, see below), five had excessive...