Elsevier

Behavioural Brain Research

Volume 195, Issue 2, 22 December 2008, Pages 215-222
Behavioural Brain Research

Research report
Early cognitive and language skills are linked to resting frontal gamma power across the first 3 years

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2008.08.049Get rights and content

Abstract

High-frequency cortical activity in humans and animals has been linked to a wide variety of higher cognitive processes. This research suggests that specific changes in neuronal synchrony occur during cognitive processing, distinguished by emergence of fast oscillations in the gamma frequency range. To determine whether the development of high-frequency brain oscillations can be related to the development of cognitive abilities, we studied the power spectra of resting EEG in children 16, 24 and 36 months of age. Individual differences in the distribution of frontal gamma power during rest were highly correlated with concurrent language and cognitive skills at all ages. Gamma power was also associated with attention measures; children who were observed as having better inhibitory control and more mature attention shifting abilities had higher gamma power density functions. We included a group of children with a family history of language impairment (FH+) and thus at higher risk for language disorders. FH+ children, as a group, showed consistently lower gamma over frontal regions than the well-matched FH− controls with no such family history (FH−). We suggest that the emergence of high-frequency neural synchrony may be critical for cognitive and linguistic development, and that children at risk for language impairments may lag in this process.

Section snippets

Introduction and literature review

Cortical activity in the gamma frequency range (∼30–80 Hz) has been linked in humans and animals to a wide variety of higher cognitive processes including attention [1], [26], [36], [38], perception [1], [21], [30], [38], [39] memory [1], [16], [18], [21], [31] and language [13], [35]. It has been hypothesized that correlations between the occurrence of higher activity in the gamma frequency range and cognitive performance (as observed in human subjects using EEG and MEG recordings) reflects

Materials and methods

The studies described here have been reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board of our University and have therefore been performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki. Informed consent was obtained from all parents prior to their child’s inclusion in the reported studies.

Gamma power differences according to family history

Inspection of individual power density plots, representing scalp distributions of power in 9 bins from 5 to 50 Hz for each child (i.e. 5–10, 11–15, 16–20, 21–25, 26–30, 31–35, 36–40, 41–45, and 46–50 Hz), labelled by group after the data processing described, revealed significant variability among subjects in both FH+ and FH− groups, specifically over frontal and prefrontal areas. Power density appeared to be lower for a subset of these children, primarily over frontal regions, beginning at about

Discussion

In summary, resting EEG gamma power was shown to be strongly associated with concurrent language and cognitive skills for all children. Significant correlations with behavior were observed over frontal and prefrontal areas at ages 16, 24 and 36 months. Further, differences between the FH+ cohort and the FH− controls groups in mean gamma power were apparent, with significantly lower mean power density across all ages in the FH+ group.

Recurrent thalamocortical and corticothalamic activity is

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by grants from NICHD (RO1-HD29419) to AAB, NSF #SBE-0542013 to the “Temporal Dynamics Of Learning Center”, by a Rutgers University Board of Trustees Excellence in Research Award to AAB, with additional funding from the Elizabeth H. Solomon Center for Neurodevelopmental Research.

Contributions: A.A.B conceived and designed research; A.A.B. and N.C. performed research and data collection; Z.G. analyzed data; K.D.H performed confirmatory analyses. The paper was written

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