Moser Julia, Labonte Alyssa K, Madison Thomas J, Hantzsch Lana, Pham Han H N, Weldon Kimberly B, Camacho M Catalina, Schwarzlose Rebecca F, Koirala Sanju, Lundquist Jacob T, Sung Sooyeon, Carrasco Cristian Morales, Hermosillo Robert J M, Nelson Steven M, Elison Jed T, Fair Damien A, Sylvester Chad M
Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
Department of Psychiatry, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA.
bioRxiv. 2025 Aug 4:2025.08.04.667740. doi: 10.1101/2025.08.04.667740.
Adaptively responding to salient stimuli in the environment is a fundamental feature of cognitive development in early life, which is enabled by the developing brain. Understanding individual variability in how the brain supports this fundamental process is essential for uncovering neurodevelopmental trajectories and potential neurodevelopmental risks. In the present study, we used a precision functional imaging approach to probe activation in response to salient auditory stimuli and its relation to brain functional networks in individual infants. A minimum of 60 minutes of fMRI BOLD data with an auditory oddball paradigm were collected in ten infants with a mean postmenstrual age of 48 weeks. Results demonstrate the feasibility of performing a precision functional imaging study to investigate individual specific responses to salient stimuli in infants. While responses to the auditory oddball were consistent between individuals in auditory processing areas, responses across the rest of the brain differed across individuals in their magnitude and shape. Individual specific response patterns appeared to be relatively stable and differed from other participant's response patterns, despite fluctuations across runs. Commonalities and differences between individuals demonstrated in this sample contribute to our understanding of how the developing brain instantiates processing of salient stimuli. Our findings suggest that during early development, early unimodal processing is well conserved across individuals, however subsequent perceptual processing is still being personally defined. In this context, individual specific response patterns could be a promising target for biomarkers of normative brain and cognitive development.
对环境中显著刺激做出适应性反应是早期认知发展的一个基本特征，这是由发育中的大脑实现的。了解大脑如何支持这一基本过程中的个体差异对于揭示神经发育轨迹和潜在的神经发育风险至关重要。在本研究中，我们使用精确功能成像方法来探究个体婴儿对显著听觉刺激的激活反应及其与脑功能网络的关系。对10名平均月经后年龄为48周的婴儿收集了至少60分钟采用听觉失匹配范式的功能磁共振成像血氧水平依赖（BOLD）数据。结果证明了进行精确功能成像研究以调查婴儿对显著刺激的个体特异性反应的可行性。虽然个体在听觉处理区域对听觉失匹配的反应是一致的，但大脑其他区域的反应在幅度和形状上因人而异。尽管各次扫描之间存在波动，但个体特异性反应模式似乎相对稳定，且与其他参与者的反应模式不同。本样本中个体之间的共性和差异有助于我们理解发育中的大脑如何实例化对显著刺激的处理。我们的研究结果表明，在早期发育过程中，早期单峰处理在个体间具有良好的保守性，然而随后的感知处理仍在个体化定义中。在此背景下，个体特异性反应模式可能是正常脑和认知发育生物标志物的一个有前景的靶点。
