Güntekin Bahar, Alptekin Simay, Yıldırım Ebru, Aktürk Tuba, Uzunlar Hakan, Çalışoğlu Pervin, Ada Figen Eroğlu, Atay Enver, Ceran Ömer
Department of Biophysics, School of Medicine, Istanbul Medipol University, Istanbul, Türkiye.
Research Institute for Health Sciences and Technologies (SABITA), Neuroscience Research Center, Clinical Electrophysiology, Neuroimaging and Neuromodulation Lab, Istanbul Medipol University, Istanbul, Türkiye.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2023 Sep 26;17:1218559. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2023.1218559. eCollection 2023.
Inhibitory control develops gradually from infancy to childhood and improves further during adolescence as the brain matures. Related previous studies showed the indispensable role of task-related alpha power during inhibition both in children and young adults. Nonetheless, none of the studies have been able to investigate the direct differences in brain responses between children and young adults when confronted with a stimulus that should be inhibited. Because, unlike event-related designs, task-related designs involve continuous tasks over a certain period, which precludes the possibility of making such a comparison. Accordingly, by employing event-related design, the present study first time in the literature, aimed to analyze the event-related alpha phase locking and event-related alpha synchronization/ desynchronization to differentiate the inhibitory processes in children compared to young adults.
Twenty children between the ages of 6 to 7 years and 20 healthy young adult subjects between the ages of 18 to 30 years were included in the study. Day-night Stroop task was applied to all subjects during 18-channel EEG recordings. Event-related time-frequency analysis was performed with the complex Morlet Wavelet Transform for the alpha frequency band (8-13 Hz). Event related spectral perturbation (ERSP) in three different time windows (0-200 ms, 200-400 ms, 400-600 ms) and Event-related phase locking in the early time window (0-400 ms) was calculated.
The children had increased alpha power in early and late time windows but decreased alpha phase locking in the early time windows compared to young adults. There were also topological differences between groups; while young adults had increased alpha phase-locking in frontal and parietal electrode sites, children had increased occipital alpha power and phase locking.
The shift in event-related alpha power observed from posterior to anterior regions with age may suggest a progressive maturation of the frontal areas involved in inhibitory processes from childhood to adulthood. The results of the present study showed that children and young adults had different EEG oscillatory dynamics during inhibitory processes at alpha frequency range.
抑制控制能力从婴儿期到儿童期逐渐发展，并在青春期随着大脑成熟而进一步提高。先前的相关研究表明，任务相关的阿尔法波功率在儿童和年轻人的抑制过程中起着不可或缺的作用。然而，尚无研究能够调查儿童和年轻人在面对应被抑制的刺激时大脑反应的直接差异。因为与事件相关设计不同，任务相关设计涉及在一定时间段内的连续任务，这排除了进行此类比较的可能性。因此，本研究首次采用事件相关设计，旨在分析事件相关的阿尔法相位锁定以及事件相关的阿尔法同步/去同步，以区分儿童与年轻人的抑制过程。
本研究纳入了20名6至7岁的儿童和20名18至30岁的健康年轻成年人。在18通道脑电图记录期间，对所有受试者应用昼夜斯特鲁普任务。使用复Morlet小波变换对阿尔法频段（8 - 13赫兹）进行事件相关的时频分析。计算了三个不同时间窗口（0 - 200毫秒、200 - 400毫秒、400 - 600毫秒）内的事件相关频谱扰动（ERSP）以及早期时间窗口（0 - 400毫秒）内的事件相关相位锁定。
与年轻人相比，儿童在早期和晚期时间窗口的阿尔法波功率增加，但在早期时间窗口的阿尔法相位锁定减少。两组之间也存在拓扑差异；年轻人在额叶和顶叶电极部位的阿尔法相位锁定增加，而儿童枕叶的阿尔法波功率和相位锁定增加。
随着年龄增长，事件相关的阿尔法波功率从后到前区域的变化可能表明，参与抑制过程的额叶区域从儿童期到成年期逐渐成熟。本研究结果表明，儿童和年轻人在阿尔法频率范围内的抑制过程中具有不同的脑电振荡动力学。
