Mapping cortical rhythms to infant behavioral tendencies via baseline EEG and parent‐report

Abstract

An important goal of developmental science is to understand how the early organization of the brain and behavioral tendencies are interconnected. A foundational step in pursuit of this goal is to identify brain‐behavior relations. Much progress has been made identifying such relations during infancy by linking baseline electroencephalography (EEG) activity to infants’ performance in lab‐based measures of socio‐emotional and cognitive development. Parent‐report represents another resource in expanding our understanding to infants’ behavioral tendencies in their natural environment. The current study explored how parent‐report of 6‐ to 12‐month‐old (N = 53) infants’ attention and regulatory abilities relates to cortical activity. The results confirmed one key hypothesis that lower levels of theta and higher levels of beta and gamma over the frontal region would be related to infants’ attentional abilities. These results are consistent with the extant baseline EEG literature. Cuddliness was robustly related to higher levels of theta and lower levels of beta over the posterior, likely reflecting infants’ tendency to use another person to self‐regulate. Our results indicate links between these cortical rhythms and attention and regulatory processes have infant origins. Our results indicate furture research investigating brain‐behavior relations using parent‐report is warranted.

Detection and analysis of cortical beta bursts in developmental EEG data

“…In this case, looking at beta bursts in younger populations may also be critical for clarifying how early changes in this frequency band could underlie typical versus atypical motor development. No developmental research thus far has analyzed beta activity in terms of bursts, with developmental studies focused on the beta band severely lacking in general ( Cuevas et al, 2014 , Perone and Gartstein, 2019 ). A few EEG studies have looked at sensorimotor beta power during action observation in infants and young children ( Meyer et al, 2011 , van Elk et al, 2008 ), and EEG and MEG research with older children and adults have demonstrated that the peak frequency of beta changes over the lifespan ( Johnson et al, 2019 , Rossiter et al, 2014 , Trevarrow et al, 2019 ).…”

Self‐regulation and frontal EEG alpha activity during infancy and early childhood: A multilevel meta‐analysis

“…A total of 149 effect sizes were coded. Of the effect sizes, most studies defined alpha power as 6–9 Hz, with the exception of two studies in which the boundaries of the frequency bands were defined based on individual alpha peak frequency (Perone & Gartstein, 2019; Perone et al., 2018) and one study that focused on the adult alpha 8–12 Hz (Lo et al., 2013). Most effect sizes were based on behavioral task measures (51%).…”

“…Moreover, findings of previous research using parent‐report measures revealed that, at least during infancy, the variability in each self‐regulation factor was linked with a different multi‐rhythm neural signature. For instance, 6‐ to 12‐month‐olds’ attention abilities were associated with lower levels of frontal theta activity and higher levels of frontal beta and gamma activity, whereas cuddliness was related to higher theta and lower beta activity at posterior sites (Perone & Gartstein, 2019). Even when looking at the alpha frequency band solely, previous research found that different aspects of self‐regulatory skills (e.g., sustained attention, adaptive control, selective attention) were related to distinct alpha modulating effects (e.g., increases vs. decreases in alpha power; see Sadaghiani & Kleinschmidt, 2016, for review).…”

“…However, research on direct links between self‐regulation and frontal alpha measures have yielded mixed results. Whereas some studies found a positive association between self‐regulation and frontal alpha power in young children (e.g., Bell, 2001; Perone et al., 2018), others failed to find such associations (e.g., Perone & Gartstein, 2019; Swingler et al., 2011). Moreover, even within the same study, findings revealed both positive and negative associations with measures of frontal alpha functional connectivity as a function of neural regions of interest (Swingler et al., 2011).…”

Development and validation of the Mindful Parenting in Infancy Scale (MPIS)

“…The EEG was referenced to Cz online. Baseline EEG was recorded for 60 s, while infants watched a segment of Baby Einstein, Baby Mozart video, wherein colorful objects are displayed as classical music is played (Perone & Gartstein, 2019a,b). The duration of EEG recording and the stimuli are consistent with existing infant baseline EEG studies (Bell & Fox, 1992; Benasich et al, 2008; Marshall et al, 2002; Morasch & Bell, 2011).…”