Mento Giovanni, Toffoli Lisa, Della Longa Letizia, Farroni Teresa, Del Popolo Cristaldi Fiorella, Duma Gian Marco
Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy.
Padova Neuroscience Center (PNC), University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy.
Brain Sci. 2022 Aug 13;12(8):1074. doi: 10.3390/brainsci12081074.
Preterm birth is a neurodevelopmental risk condition often associated with cognitive control (CC) impairment. Recent evidence showed that CC can be implicitly adapted through associative learning. In the present study we investigated the ability to flexibly adjust CC as a function of implicit stimulus-response temporal regularities in preterm (PT; N = 21; mean age 8 ± 1.3 years; gestational age 30 ± 18.5 weeks) and full-term (FT; N = 20; mean age 8 ± 1.3 years) school-age children. All children underwent an HD-EEG recording while undergoing the Dynamic Temporal Prediction (DTP) task, a simple S1-S2 detection task purposely designed to generate local-global temporal predictability of imperative stimuli. The Wisconsin card sorting test (WCST) was administered to measure explicit CC. The PT group showed more premature and slower (DTP) as well as perseverative (WCST) responses than the FT group. Moreover, pre-terms showed poor adaptive CC as revealed by less efficient global response-speed adjustment. This behavioral pattern was mirrored by a reduced and less sensitive to global manipulation anticipatory Contingent Negative Variation (CNV) and by different cortical source recruitment. These findings suggest that implicit CC may be a reliable endophenotypic marker of atypical cognitive development associated with preterm birth.
早产是一种神经发育风险状况，常与认知控制（CC）受损相关。最近的证据表明，CC可以通过联想学习进行隐性调整。在本研究中，我们调查了早产（PT；N = 21；平均年龄8±1.3岁；胎龄30±18.5周）和足月（FT；N = 20；平均年龄8±1.3岁）学龄儿童根据隐性刺激-反应时间规律灵活调整CC的能力。所有儿童在进行动态时间预测（DTP）任务时都接受了高密度脑电图（HD-EEG）记录，DTP任务是一项简单的S1-S2检测任务，专门设计用于生成紧急刺激的局部-全局时间可预测性。采用威斯康星卡片分类测验（WCST）来测量显性CC。PT组比FT组表现出更多的早熟和较慢（DTP）以及持续性（WCST）反应。此外，早产儿童表现出适应性CC较差，这表现为全局反应速度调整效率较低。这种行为模式反映在对全局操作的预期关联性负变（CNV）减少且敏感性降低以及不同的皮质源募集上。这些发现表明，隐性CC可能是与早产相关的非典型认知发展的可靠内表型标记。
