Hartkopf Julia, Schleger Franziska, Weiss Magdalene, Hertrich Ingo, Kiefer-Schmidt Isabelle, Preissl Hubert, Muenssinger Jana
fMEG Center, University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Germany.
fMEG Center, University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Germany; German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD e.V.), Tuebingen, Germany; Institute for Diabetes Research and Metabolic Diseases of the Helmholtz Center Munich at the University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Germany.
Early Hum Dev. 2016 Sep;100:61-6. doi: 10.1016/j.earlhumdev.2016.04.002. Epub 2016 Jul 13.
Habituation, as a basic form of learning, is characterized by decreasing amplitudes of neuronal reaction following repeated stimuli. Recent studies indicate that habituation to pure tones of different frequencies occurs in fetuses and infants.
Neural processing of different syllables in fetuses and infants was investigated.
An auditory habituation paradigm including two different sequences of syllables was presented to each subject. Each sequence consisted of eight syllables (sequence /ba/: 5× /ba/, 1× /bi/ (dishabituator), 2× /ba/; sequence /bi/: 5× /bi/, 1× /ba/ (dishabituator), 2× /bi/). Each subject was stimulated with 140 sequences. Neuromagnetic signatures of auditory-evoked responses (AER) were recorded by fetal magnetoencephalography (fMEG).
Magnetic brain signals of N=30 fetuses (age: 28-39weeks of gestation) and N=28 infants (age: 0-3months) were recorded. Forty-two of the 60 fetal recordings and 29 of the 58 infant recordings were included in the final analysis.
AERs were recorded and amplitudes were normalized to the amplitude of the first stimulus.
In both fetuses and infants, the amplitudes of AERs were found not to decrease with repeated stimulation. In infants, however, amplitude of syllable 6 (dishabituator) was significantly increased compared to syllable 5 (p=0.026).
Fetuses and infants showed AERs to syllables. Unlike fetuses, infants showed a discriminative neural response to syllables. Habituation was not observed in either fetuses or infants. These findings could be important for the investigation of early cognitive competencies and may help to gain a better understanding of language acquisition during child development.
习惯化作为一种基本的学习形式，其特征是在重复刺激后神经元反应的幅度减小。最近的研究表明，胎儿和婴儿会对不同频率的纯音产生习惯化。
研究胎儿和婴儿对不同音节的神经处理。
向每个受试者呈现一种听觉习惯化范式，该范式包括两个不同的音节序列。每个序列由八个音节组成（序列/ba/：5个/ba/，1个/bi/（去习惯化刺激），2个/ba/；序列/bi/：5个/bi/，1个/ba/（去习惯化刺激），2个/bi/）。每个受试者接受140个序列的刺激。通过胎儿脑磁图（fMEG）记录听觉诱发反应（AER）的神经磁特征。
记录了N = 30名胎儿（年龄：妊娠28 - 39周）和N = 28名婴儿（年龄：0 - 3个月）的脑磁信号。60例胎儿记录中的42例和58例婴儿记录中的29例被纳入最终分析。
记录AER，并将幅度归一化为第一个刺激的幅度。
在胎儿和婴儿中，均发现AER的幅度不会随着重复刺激而降低。然而，在婴儿中，与音节5相比，音节6（去习惯化刺激）的幅度显著增加（p = 0.026）。
胎儿和婴儿对音节表现出AER。与胎儿不同，婴儿对音节表现出有区别的神经反应。在胎儿和婴儿中均未观察到习惯化。这些发现可能对早期认知能力的研究很重要，并可能有助于更好地理解儿童发育过程中的语言习得。
