Department of Psychology, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA.
Dev Cogn Neurosci. 2012 Apr;2(2):235-43. doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2012.01.002. Epub 2012 Jan 16.
During the first year, infants begin to exhibit initial evidence of working memory and inhibitory control in conjunction with substantial maturation of the frontal cortex and corresponding neural circuitry. Currently, relatively little is known about the neural and autonomic resources that are recruited in response to increased executive demands during the first year of development. To this end, we recorded electroencephalogram (EEG; 6-9 Hz) and electrocardiogram from 10-month-olds during a working memory and inhibitory control task (looking A-not-B). Analyses compared measures of frontal functioning (EEG power, EEG coherence, heart rate) during nonreversal (working memory) and reversal (working memory+inhibitory control) trials. The increased cognitive demand of inhibitory control processing was associated with increases in heart rate and frontal coherence (medial frontal-lateral frontal, medial frontal-temporal, medial frontal-medial parietal, and medial frontal-occipital electrode pairs). Thus, synchronized activity across distributed cortical regions appeared to be essential to inhibitory control processes during infancy. The addition of inhibitory control processes, however, was not associated with any changes in neuronal activity (EEG power). These findings are discussed in relation to other neuroscience findings and provide insight into the development of integrated frontal functioning in infancy.
在第一年，婴儿开始表现出初步的工作记忆和抑制控制的证据，伴随着额叶皮层和相应的神经回路的大量成熟。目前，关于在婴儿期第一年的发展中，为了应对增加的执行需求而招募的神经和自主资源，人们知之甚少。为此，我们在一项工作记忆和抑制控制任务（看 A 不看 B）中记录了 10 个月大婴儿的脑电图（EEG；6-9Hz）和心电图。分析比较了非反转（工作记忆）和反转（工作记忆+抑制控制）试验期间额叶功能（EEG 功率、EEG 相干性、心率）的测量值。抑制控制处理的认知需求增加与心率和额叶相干性的增加有关（额中-额外侧、额中-颞部、额中-顶叶和额中-枕部电极对）。因此，分布式皮质区域之间的同步活动似乎对婴儿期的抑制控制过程至关重要。然而，抑制控制过程的增加与神经元活动（EEG 功率）没有任何变化有关。这些发现与其他神经科学发现有关，并为婴儿期整合的额叶功能发展提供了深入了解。
