Cooing- and babbling-related gamma-oscillations during infancy: Intracranial recording

Abstract

We determined the spatio-temporal dynamics of intracranially-recorded gamma-oscillations modulated by spontaneous cooing and babbling, which are considered to embody pre-linguistic language behaviors during infancy. Electrocorticographic (ECoG) signals were recorded from 110 cortical sites in the right hemisphere of a 10-month-old girl with focal epilepsy. ECoG signals were time-locked to the onset of cooing or babbling. The amplitudes of gamma-oscillations during vocalizations were compared to those during preceding silent reference periods. Cooing and babbling elicited significant gamma-augmentation at 30–100 Hz at distinct sites of the inferior Rolandic region, whereas both forms of vocalizations elicited gamma-augmentation at an identical superior temporal site. The spatial, temporal and spectral characteristics of gamma-augmentation elicited by cooing and babbling were similar to those elicited by phoneme vocalization in older children and adults. Differential activation within the right inferior Rolandic region during cooing and babbling may reflect the mechanical or developmental difference between these two forms of vocalizations. The right superior temporal gyrus may participate in an auditory feedback system during vocalization.

Neurolinguistic and machine-learning perspectives on direct speech BCIs for restoration of naturalistic communication

“…Brain activity during spontaneous, non-experimental communication, however, is a largely unexplored phenomenon, which has been referred to as 'the dark matter' of cognitive neuroscience [40]. To bridge this gap, several labs worldwide have started investigating the neuronal activity underlying language in extraoperatively recorded ECoG in increasingly naturalistic experiments [3,4,[41][42][43][44] as well as in conditions of non-experimental, real-world communication [18,20,21,23,[45][46][47][48][49]. Their reported effects align with previous experimental findings (cf.…”

“…With only about a dozen recent exceptions [18,20,21,23,[45][46][47][48][49], neurolinguistic and direct speech BCI studies to date are based on experiments. Investigation of non-experimental, real-word language is a novel, largely unexplored approach.…”

Clinical significance and developmental changes of auditory-language-related gamma activity

“…It still remains unknown at what point each brain region begins to show language-related gamma-augmentation maximally involving 80–100 Hz. Our recent ECoG study of a 10-month-old patient with right-sided seizure focus reported that spontaneous cooing and babbling elicited gamma-augmentation ranging up to 100 Hz in the right inferior-Rolandic and superior-temporal regions (Cho-Hisamoto et al, 2012). Since few infants have the capability to complete a naming task, studies including infants using passive auditory or somatosensory tasks may be warranted to determine the developmental changes of event-related gamma-augmentation.…”

Relationships and Resources: Supporting Exceptional Learners from Birth through Primary School

“…They will show excitement by waving their arms and legs, much to the delight of their caregivers. Between 6 and 12 months of age, the coos turn into playful babbles that may start to sound like words as they near the 1-year mark [9]. They will shout loudly to get attention, show affection, and start to understand cause and effect (e.g., if I cry, then something will happen).…”