Maturation of the auditory change detection response in infants: a longitudinal ERP study

Abstract

Mismatch negativity (MMN) is a negative component of auditory event-related potential (ERP), reflecting the brain's automatic change detection process. In the present study we investigated the development of the pitch change detection, as indexed by the MMN, in the same infants from birth until 12 months of age. The MMN was identified in approximately 75% of infants at each age, being relatively stable in latency and amplitude at the group level across the ages studied. However, within the same subjects the MMN substantially varied from age to age. The inspection of individual data revealed a possible source of this variability: in a portion of 3- to 9-month-old infants, a large-amplitude positive component commenced at the latency of the MMN and thus might have masked it. The results of the additional experiment, employing distracting novel sounds in 2-year-old infants and newborns, suggested that the observed positive component could represent an infant analogue of the adult P3a response, indexing an involuntary orienting of attention. Therefore, the variability from age to age might be, at least partially, caused by the differences in degree of infants' orienting, resulting in the reduction of the scalp recorded mismatch negativity in recordings when the orienting P3a positivity was elicited.

Auditory perception at the root of language learning

“…The exact functional interpretation of the positive and negative MMRs in early infancy is still a topic of debate. However, it has been argued that the negative MMR in infants reflects mature, adult-like memory-based deviant detection, and the positive MMR might reflect more general processes related to neural adaptation (23) or different states of alertness and attention (25,29). Notwithstanding these arguments, it is clearly evident from the literature that the positivity occurs earlier than the negativity on the developmental timeline (23,24), and thus a maturational interpretation of the present findings seems warranted.…”

“…The MMN has been observed for both simple auditory discrimination, as well as relatively complex and even abstract regularities (20). Infants' MMRs can be measured from birth (21,22) and show a specific developmental pattern, beginning with a positive response in early infancy to a more mature negative-going MMN later on (23)(24)(25). Notably, MMN development is feature-specific; that is, an adult-like negativity may occur at different developmental times across various auditory features (23).…”

Enhancement of brain event-related potentials to speech sounds is associated with compensated reading skills in dyslexic children with familial risk for dyslexia

“…MMN is detectable from a very early age Kujala et al, 2004;Kushnerenko et al, 2002;Martynova, Kirjavainen, & Cheour, 2003). MMN reflects the change detection process for a deviating sound.…”

“…In the developmental studies, the naming of the components is varied: sometimes according to the adult components if they seem to correspond with the adult equivalents with small differences in latency and/or amplitude, but other naming conventions also exist. Moreover, it is not clear if these components at different ages are equivalent to each other in their functions ( eponien , Cheour, & Näätänen, 1998;Kushnerenko, eponien , Balan, Fellman, & Näätänen, 2002). In adults, however, the functions of the components are known to a certain extent.…”

“…It has also been stated that maturational changes are related to development of the thalamic-cortical portions of the central auditory system . Until preschool the predominant morphology is P1-N2 complex, which begins to diminish in early school age at 7-8 years when the adult-like N1-P2 complex arises to take dominance by adulthood (Kushnerenko et al, 2002;.…”