Piazza Caterina, Visintin Eleonora, Reni Gianluigi, Montirosso Rosario
Bioengineering Laboratory, Scientific Institute, IRCCS E. Medea, Bosisio Parini, 23842 Lecco, Italy.
0-3 Center for the At-Risk Infants, Scientific Institute, IRCCS E. Medea, Bosisio Parini, 23842 Lecco, Italy.
Brain Sci. 2021 Aug 31;11(9):1159. doi: 10.3390/brainsci11091159.
Event-related mu-rhythm activity has become a common tool for the investigation of different socio-cognitive processes in pediatric populations. The estimation of the mu-rhythm desynchronization/synchronization (mu-ERD/ERS) in a specific task is usually computed in relation to a baseline condition. In the present study, we investigated the effect that different types of baseline might have on toddler mu-ERD/ERS related to an action observation (AO) and action execution (AE) task. Specifically, we compared mu-ERD/ERS values computed using as a baseline: (1) the observation of a static image (BL1) and (2) a period of stillness (BL2). Our results showed that the majority of the subjects suppressed the mu-rhythm in response to the task and presented a greater mu-ERD for one of the two baselines. In some cases, one of the two baselines was not even able to produce a significant mu-ERD, and the preferred baseline varied among subjects even if most of them were more sensitive to the BL1, thus suggesting that this could be a good baseline to elicit mu-rhythm modulations in toddlers. These results recommended some considerations for the design and analysis of mu-rhythm studies involving pediatric subjects: in particular, the importance of verifying the mu-rhythm activity during baseline, the relevance of single-subject analysis, the possibility of including more than one baseline condition, and caution in the choice of the baseline and in the interpretation of the results of studies investigating mu-rhythm activity in pediatric populations.
事件相关的μ节律活动已成为研究儿科人群不同社会认知过程的常用工具。特定任务中μ节律去同步化/同步化（μ-ERD/ERS）的估计通常是相对于基线条件进行计算的。在本研究中，我们调查了不同类型的基线对幼儿与动作观察（AO）和动作执行（AE）任务相关的μ-ERD/ERS可能产生的影响。具体而言，我们比较了以以下为基线计算的μ-ERD/ERS值：（1）静态图像观察（BL1）和（2）一段静止期（BL2）。我们的结果表明，大多数受试者在任务响应中抑制了μ节律，并且在两个基线之一中表现出更大的μ-ERD。在某些情况下，两个基线之一甚至无法产生显著的μ-ERD，并且即使大多数受试者对BL1更敏感，首选基线在受试者之间也有所不同，因此表明这可能是引发幼儿μ节律调制的良好基线。这些结果为涉及儿科受试者的μ节律研究的设计和分析提出了一些考虑因素：特别是，在基线期间验证μ节律活动的重要性、单受试者分析的相关性、纳入多个基线条件的可能性，以及在选择基线和解释儿科人群中μ节律活动研究结果时的谨慎性。
