Bacher Leigh F, Retz Shirley, Lindon Courtney, Bell Martha Ann
Infancy. 2017 Mar-Apr;22(2):150-170. doi: 10.1111/infa.12164. Epub 2016 Sep 14.
The rate and timing of spontaneous eye blinking (SB) may be used to explore mechanisms of cognitive activity in infancy. In particular, SB rate is believed to reflect some dimensions of dopamine function; therefore, we hypothesized that SB rate would relate to working memory performance and to frontal electroencephalogram (EEG) asymmetry. Forty, 10-mo-old infants completed an A-not-B task while SB and EEG were measured throughout. We found that SB rate varied across phases of the task, variability in SB rate was positively related to working memory performance, and frontal EEG asymmetry was related to individual differences in the rate of SB. Results provide indirect, but convergent support for the hypothesis that SB rate reflects dopamine function early in human development. As such, these results have implications for understanding the tonic and phasic effects of dopamine on cognitive activity early in human development.
自发性眨眼（SB）的频率和时间可用于探究婴儿期认知活动的机制。特别是，人们认为SB频率反映了多巴胺功能的某些方面；因此，我们假设SB频率与工作记忆表现以及额叶脑电图（EEG）不对称性有关。40名10个月大的婴儿完成了一项A非B任务，同时全程测量了SB和EEG。我们发现，SB频率在任务各阶段有所不同，SB频率的变异性与工作记忆表现呈正相关，额叶EEG不对称性与SB频率的个体差异有关。结果为SB频率反映人类发育早期多巴胺功能这一假设提供了间接但一致的支持。因此，这些结果对于理解多巴胺对人类发育早期认知活动的紧张性和相位性影响具有启示意义。
