Resting-state neural activity and brain structure associations in infants and children
Poster No:
1302
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
James Edgar1, Heather Green1, Kylie Mol1, Marybeth McNamee1, Mina Kim1, Yuhan Chen1
Institutions:
1Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Introduction:
Many electrophysiology studies have reported on resting-state (RS) neural activity in humans. This research often focuses on RS alpha-band activity (8-12 Hz in adults), with RS alpha activity commonly interpreted as reflecting the brain's readiness to process information (Klimesch et al., 2007), predicting task performance and processing speed (Klimesch, 1999), and being integral to local- and long-range functional connectivity (Osipova et al., 2008). Infant RS studies seek to understand the maturation of RS neural processes, with the first two years of life a period of rapid neural development. This line of research is constrained by difficulty obtaining prototypical high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) eyes-closed RS electrophysiology measures in infants and toddlers, with almost all infant studies obtaining RS measures while infants view visual stimuli, and with an eyes-open condition not generating a robust infant 'alpha' response (here referred to as the 'dominant oscillation' response; (Edgar et al., 2023)). In the present study, a RS task optimized for infants was used to examine the maturation of RS activity from 0 to 28 months, with associations between RS neural activity and brain structure also examined.
Methods:
Whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG) data were obtained while infants underwent an eyes-open dark room (DR) RS task (Edgar et al., 2023). The infants rested with eyes open in total darkness for 30s, then viewed the Inscape video for 20 s (Vanderwal et al., 2015), alternating 6 times. 300s of DR data were collected to obtain 180s of video off and 120s of video on data. Following the MEG exam, MRI data were collected on a Siemens Prisma 3T: a T1-weighted magnetization-prepared rapid gradient-echo image, a T2-weighted image, and a diffusion-weighted spin-echo single-shot EPI sequence with opposed phase encoding direction pairs. RS DR activity was examined in brain space using distributed source modeling, with analyses examining periodic and aperiodic activity RS measures (Ostlund et al., 2022) in a parietal-occipital ROI. Parietal-occipital gray matter (cortical thickness) and local diffusion measures (e.g., fractional anisotropy) were obtained to assess associations between RS neural activity and brain structure.
Results:
MEG data were obtained from 26 infants (0 to 18 months). As shown in Figure 1a, comparison of the total darkness (black line) and the video-on (red line) power spectrum shows that the infant dominant oscillation was easily identified in the infants/toddlers in the total darkness condition but not the video-on condition (x axis shows frequency and y axis RS power). Figure 1b shows the expected age-related increase in the infant dominant oscillation frequency in the total darkness condition. MEG, T1, and DTI data were obtained from 23 infants. As shown in Figure 2, more mature parietal-occipital gray matter (in infants, less gray-matter cortical thickness) as well as more mature parietal-occipital white matter (in infants, higher fractional anisotropy and lower mean diffusivity) predicted a more mature RS dominant oscillation frequency (higher frequency) as well as more mature aperiodic offset and exponent values (in infants, these values decreasing as a function of age).
·Figure 1: Infant RS parietal-occipital activity
·Figure2: RS activity and brain structure associations
Conclusions:
The eyes-open DR task provides RS measures with a high-SNR dominant oscillation response in awake infants, with a periodic dominant oscillation (3 to 8 Hz) observed in all infants (and thus indicating the presence of a 'dominant oscillation' in even young infants), and with a higher frequency dominant oscillation observed in older than younger infants. Present findings build on and extend the few older child and adult studies examining RS neural activity and brain structure association (Edgar et al., 2015; Green et al., 2021; Valdes-Hernandez et al., 2010), with the maturation of parietal-occipital gray and white matter associated with the maturation of periodic as well as aperiodic RS neural activity.
Lifespan Development:
Normal Brain Development: Fetus to Adolescence 1
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
EEG/MEG Modeling and Analysis 2
Neuroanatomy, Physiology, Metabolism and Neurotransmission:
Anatomy and Functional Systems
Normal Development
Novel Imaging Acquisition Methods:
MEG
Keywords:
Development
ELECTROPHYSIOLOGY
MEG
Myelin
PEDIATRIC
Source Localization
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
Provide references using author date format
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Green, H. L., (2021). Peak Alpha Frequency and Thalamic Structure in Children with Typical Development and Autism Spectrum Disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, doi:10.1007/s10803-021-04926-9
Klimesch, W. (1999). EEG alpha and theta oscillations reflect cognitive and memory performance: a review and analysis. Brain Research Reviews, 29(2-3), 169-195.
Klimesch, W. (2007). EEG alpha oscillations: the inhibition-timing hypothesis. Brain Research Reviews, 53(1), 63-88. doi:10.1016/j.brainresrev.2006.06.003
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