Oder Austin L, Stalling David L, Barlow Steven M
Communication Neuroscience Laboratories, Department of Speech-Language-Hearing, Sciences and Disorders, University of Kansas, Room 3001, 1000 Sunnyside Avenue, Lawrence, KS 66045-7555, USA.
Int J Pediatr. 2013;2013:168459. doi: 10.1155/2013/168459. Epub 2013 Apr 29.
The dense representation of trigeminal mechanosensitive afferents in the lip vermilion, anterior tongue, intraoral mucosa, and temporomandibular joint allows the infant's orofacial system to encode a wide range of somatosensory experiences during the critical period associated with feed development. Our understanding of how this complex sensorium processes texture is very limited in adults, and the putative role of texture encoding in the infant is unknown. The purpose of this study was to examine the short-term effects of a novel textured pacifier experience in healthy term infants (N = 28). Nonnutritive suck (NNS) compression pressure waveforms were digitized in real time using a variety of custom-molded textured pacifiers varying in spatial array density of touch domes. MANCOVA, adjusted for postmenstrual age at test and sex, revealed that infants exhibited an increase in NNS burst attempts at the expense of a degraded suck burst structure with the textured pacifiers, suggesting that the suck central pattern generator (sCPG) is significantly disrupted and reorganized by this novel orocutaneous experience. The current findings provide new insight into oromotor control as a function of the oral somatosensory environment in neurotypically developing infants.
三叉神经机械性感受传入神经在唇红、舌尖、口腔黏膜和颞下颌关节中的密集分布，使婴儿的口面部系统能够在与进食发育相关的关键时期对广泛的躯体感觉体验进行编码。我们对这种复杂感觉系统如何处理质地的理解在成年人中非常有限，而且质地编码在婴儿中的假定作用尚不清楚。本研究的目的是检验一种新型带纹理安抚奶嘴体验对健康足月儿（N = 28）的短期影响。使用各种定制模制的带纹理安抚奶嘴，其触觉穹顶的空间阵列密度各不相同，实时数字化非营养性吸吮（NNS）压缩压力波形。经测试时的月经后年龄和性别调整的多变量协方差分析显示，使用带纹理安抚奶嘴时，婴儿的NNS爆发尝试次数增加，但吸吮爆发结构变差，这表明这种新型口腔皮肤体验会显著扰乱并重组吸吮中枢模式发生器（sCPG）。目前的研究结果为神经发育正常的婴儿中作为口腔躯体感觉环境函数的口部运动控制提供了新的见解。
