Bagdasarov Armen, Markert Sarah, Gaffrey Michael S
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708.
Children's Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI 53226.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2025 Mar 18;122(11):e2414636122. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2414636122. Epub 2025 Mar 13.
As infants grow, they develop greater attentional control during interactions with others, shifting from patterns of attention primarily driven by caregivers (exogenous) to those that are also self-directed (endogenous). The ability to endogenously control attention during infancy is thought to reflect ongoing brain development and is influenced by patterns of joint attention between infant and caregiver. However, whether measures of infant attentional control and caregiver behavior during infant-caregiver interactions relate to patterns of infant brain activity is unknown and key for informing developmental models of attentional control. Using data from 43 infant-caregiver dyads, we quantified patterns of visual attention with dyadic, head-mounted eye tracking during infant-caregiver play and associated them with the duration of infant EEG microstate D/4 measured during rest. Importantly, microstate D/4 is a scalp potential topography thought to reflect the organization and function of attention-related brain networks. We found that microstate D/4 associated positively with infant-led joint attention rate but did not associate with caregiver-led joint attention rate, suggesting that infant-led coordination of joint attention during play may be critical for the neurobiological development of attentional control, or vice versa. Further, we found that microstate D/4 associated negatively with infant attention shift rate and positively with infant sustained attention duration, suggesting that increased stability of microstate D/4 may reflect maturation of attentional control and its underlying neural substrates. Together, our findings provide insights into how infant attentional control abilities and infant-caregiver visual behavior during play are associated with the spatial and temporal dynamics of infant brain activity.
随着婴儿的成长，他们在与他人互动时会发展出更强的注意力控制能力，从主要由照顾者驱动的注意力模式（外源性）转变为自我导向的模式（内源性）。婴儿期内源性控制注意力的能力被认为反映了大脑的持续发育，并受到婴儿与照顾者之间共同注意力模式的影响。然而，婴儿与照顾者互动期间婴儿注意力控制和照顾者行为的测量指标是否与婴儿大脑活动模式相关尚不清楚，这对于构建注意力控制的发育模型至关重要。我们使用来自43对婴儿-照顾者二元组的数据，在婴儿-照顾者玩耍期间通过二元头戴式眼动追踪对视觉注意力模式进行了量化，并将其与休息期间测量的婴儿脑电图微状态D/4的持续时间相关联。重要的是，微状态D/4是一种头皮电位地形图，被认为反映了与注意力相关的脑网络的组织和功能。我们发现微状态D/4与婴儿主导的共同注意力率呈正相关，但与照顾者主导的共同注意力率无关，这表明玩耍期间婴儿主导的共同注意力协调可能对注意力控制的神经生物学发育至关重要，反之亦然。此外，我们发现微状态D/4与婴儿注意力转移率呈负相关，与婴儿持续注意力持续时间呈正相关，这表明微状态D/4稳定性的增加可能反映了注意力控制及其潜在神经基质的成熟。总之，我们的研究结果为婴儿注意力控制能力以及玩耍期间婴儿-照顾者视觉行为如何与婴儿大脑活动的时空动态相关联提供了见解。
