Are advanced methods necessary to improve infant fNIRS data analysis? An assessment of baseline-corrected averaging, general linear model (GLM) and multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) based approaches

In the last decade, fNIRS has provided a non-invasive method to investigate neural activation in developmental populations. Despite its increasing use in developmental cognitive neuroscience, there is little consistency or consensus on how to pre-process and analyse infant fNIRS data. With this registered report, we investigated the feasibility of applying more advanced statistical analyses to infant fNIRS data and compared the most commonly used baseline-corrected averaging, General Linear Model (GLM)-based univariate, and Multivariate Pattern Analysis (MVPA) approaches, to show how the conclusions one would draw based on these different analysis approaches converge or differ. The different analysis methods were tested using a face inversion paradigm where changes in brain activation in response to upright and inverted face stimuli were measured in thirty 4-to-6-month-old infants. By including more standard approaches together with recent machine learning techniques, we aim to inform the fNIRS community on alternative ways to analyse infant fNIRS datasets

A percepção da configuração do movimento biológico em bebés

Tese de doutoramento em Psicologia BásicaPara compreender os outros, interpretar as suas ações, emoções ou intenções, é necessário aprender a descodificar o movimento dos nossos parceiros sociais. Para isso, primeiro, precisamos de ser capazes de orientar a nossa atenção para o movimento das outras pessoas; em seguida, necessitámos de integrar o movimento das diferentes partes do corpo (por exemplo, dos membros) na configuração coerente e global de um corpo humano em movimento—a isto designamos de processamento configural; só então é que finalmente somos capazes de interpretar o objetivo e o significado de uma ação. O processamento configural do movimento biológico é um processo básico, mas altamente relevante na interpretação do significado de uma ação e, consequentemente, crucial para a interação social e para a cognição social humana. A investigação acerca do desenvolvimento da percepção do movimento biológico indica que o processamento configural surge durante o primeiro ano de vida (Bertenthal, 1993), associado à maturação cortical dos bebés e ao seu desenvolvimento sociocognitivo (Pavlova, 2012). A presente dissertação pretende investigar o desenvolvimento do processamento configural na percepção do movimento biológico durante a primeira metade do primeiro ano de vida dos bebés. Para isso, combinamos duas técnicas de investigação da Psicologia do Desenvolvimento, distintas mas complementares: o functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) e o procedimento de atenção preferencial (preferential looking). Nesta dissertação são então apresentados os resultados de quatro estudos experimentais, dois de fNIRS e dois comportamentais, realizados em bebés com idades compreendidas entre os três e os sete meses de idade. No Capítulo 1 é apresentada uma extensa revisão da literatura sobre o papel do processamento configural na percepção do movimento biológico, ou seja, sobre como esta competência perceptual é relevante para a cognição-social humana e, em particular, para o desenvolvimento sociocognitivo dos bebés. No Capítulo 2 e 3 são apresentados e discutidos dois estudos de fNIRS realizados com bebés de sete meses. Estes foram os primeiros estudos realizados na infância, que mediram a resposta hemodinâmica do cérebro ao movimento humano utilizando displays de pontos de luz (point-light walkers) como estímulos. Estes estudos visaram investigar se a percepção do movimento biológico é sustentada, na infância tal como nos adultos, pelo funcionamento do sulco temporal superior direito (STS direito). O STS é uma área central do córtex humano para o processamento de estímulos sociais, e o processamento da configuração do movimento biológico parece também ocorrer neste local em adultos (Deen, Koldewyn, Kanwisher, & Saxe, 2015). No Capítulo 4, são apresentados dois estudos de atenção preferencial, um longitudinal e outro transversal. Os dois estudos pretendem perceber quando é que os bebés preferem uma configuração coerente do movimento humano. Especificamente, procuram descobrir quando, na infância, surge uma preferência pela configuração coerente e global humana de uma pessoa a andar em relação a um estímulo cujas posições dos pontos de luz foram randomizadas. Bebés de três e cinco meses foram testados num estudo transversal, e bebés de três, cinco e sete meses de idade, longitudinalmente. Finalmente, no Capítulo 5, discutimos e concluímos acerca as implicações das nossas descobertas. Encontramos importantes mudanças de desenvolvimento na percepção da configuração do movimento biológico durante os primeiros meses de vida—os nossos resultados contribuem para uma compreensão mais completa da percepção do movimento biológico em bebés e das origens e desenvolvimento da cognição social humana.To understand others, interpret their actions, emotions or intentions, we have to learn how to decode human motion. For that, first, we need to start by paying attention to the motion of others; afterward, we have to be able to integrate the individual and local motion of moving body parts (such as limbs) into the coherent and motion configuration of a whole human body acting—this is called configural processing; only then we are finally able to predict, interpret, and understand the goal and meaning of an action. Configural processing is a basic but highly relevant process in biological motion perception with implications on action understanding, social interaction and in human social cognition. Developmental research on biological motion perception indicates that configural processing emerges during our first year of life (Bertenthal, 1993), associated to important cortical specializations, and to infants’ social-cognitive development (Pavlova, 2012). The present dissertation investigated the development of configural processing in biological motion during the first half of infants’ first year of life. For that, two distinct but complementary techniques from developmental research were combined: functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and the preferential looking procedure. This dissertation presents and discusses the outcomes of two neuroimaging and two behavioral experiments conducted with infants, aged from three to seven months of age, on the perception of biological motion configuration. Chapter 1 begins with an extensive literature revision on the role of configural processing in biological motion perception, namely, on how this basic perceptual skill is relevant for human social abilities and, in particular, for infants’ social-cognitive development. In Chapter 2 and 3, two fNIRS experiments conducted with seven months old infants are presented and discussed. These were the first fNIRS studies conducted in infancy, using point-light walkers as stimuli. They intended to investigate whether the perception of biological motion is underpinned, in infants as in adults, by the right superior temporal sulcus (right STS) functioning. The right STS is a cornerstone for human social-cognition, and biological motion configural processing occurs in this site in the adults brain (Deen, Koldewyn, Kanwisher, & Saxe, 2015). In Chapter 4, two preferential looking experiments, one longitudinal and another cross sectional, are presented. These two studies intended to find when, in infancy, emerges a preference for biological motion configuration. Specifically, when, in infants aged three to seven months, emerges a preference for the coherent motion configuration of a person walking in relation to scrambled display. Finally, in Chapter 5, we discuss and conclude about the implications of our findings. We found important developmental changes in the perception of biological motion configuration during the first few months of life—our results contribute to a broader understanding of biological motion perception in infancy thus to the origins of human social-cognition.The Portuguese Science Foundation through an individual doctoral grant attributed to Isabel C. Lisboa (PD/BD/105966/2014) supported this research. This grant was supported by Fundo Social Europeu and by national founds from MEC

Are advanced methods necessary to improve infant fNIRS data analysis? An assessment of baseline-corrected averaging, general linear model (GLM) and multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) based approaches

In the last decade, fNIRS has provided a non-invasive method to investigate neural activation in developmental populations. Despite its increasing use in developmental cognitive neuroscience, there is little consistency or consensus on how to pre-process and analyse infant fNIRS data. With this registered report, we investigated the feasibility of applying more advanced statistical analyses to infant fNIRS data and compared the most commonly used baseline-corrected averaging, General Linear Model (GLM)-based univariate, and Multivariate Pattern Analysis (MVPA) approaches, to show how the conclusions one would draw based on these different analysis approaches converge or differ. The different analysis methods were tested using a face inversion paradigm where changes in brain activation in response to upright and inverted face stimuli were measured in thirty 4-to-6-month-old infants. By including more standard approaches together with recent machine learning techniques, we aim to inform the fNIRS community on alternative ways to analyse infant fNIRS datasets

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy studies in children

Psychosomatic and developmental behavioral medicine in pediatrics has been the subject of significant recent attention, with infants, school-age children, and adolescents frequently presenting with psychosomatic, behavioral, and psychiatric symptoms. These may be a consequence of insecurity of attachment, reduced self-confidence, and peer -relationship conflicts during their developmental stages. Developmental cognitive neuroscience has revealed significant associations between specific brain lesions and particular cognitive dysfunctions. Thus, identifying the biological deficits underlying such cognitive dysfunction may provide new insights into therapeutic prospects for the management of those symptoms in children. Recent advances in noninvasive neuroimaging techniques, and especially functional near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), have contributed significant findings to the field of developmental cognitive neuroscience in pediatrics. We present here a comprehensive review of functional NIRS studies of children who have developed normally and of children with psychosomatic and behavioral disorders

Functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to assess cognitive function in infants in rural Africa

Cortical mapping of cognitive function during infancy is poorly understood in low-income countries due to the lack of transportable neuroimaging methods. We have successfully piloted functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) as a neuroimaging tool in rural Gambia. Four-to-eight month old infants watched videos of Gambian adults perform social movements, while haemodynamic responses were recorded using fNIRS. We found distinct regions of the posterior superior temporal and inferior frontal cortex that evidenced either visual-social activation or vocally selective activation (vocal > non-vocal). The patterns of selective cortical activation in Gambian infants replicated those observed within similar aged infants in the UK. These are the first reported data on the measurement of localized functional brain activity in young infants in Africa and demonstrate the potential that fNIRS offers for field-based neuroimaging research of cognitive function in resource-poor rural communities

Functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to assess cognitive function in infants in rural Africa

Cortical mapping of cognitive function during infancy is poorly understood in low-income countries due to the lack of transportable neuroimaging methods. We have successfully piloted functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) as a neuroimaging tool in rural Gambia. Four-to-eight month old infants watched videos of Gambian adults perform social movements, while haemodynamic responses were recorded using fNIRS. We found distinct regions of the posterior superior temporal and inferior frontal cortex that evidenced either visual-social activation or vocally selective activation (vocal > non-vocal). The patterns of selective cortical activation in Gambian infants replicated those observed within similar aged infants in the UK. These are the first reported data on the measurement of localized functional brain activity in young infants in Africa and demonstrate the potential that fNIRS offers for field-based neuroimaging research of cognitive function in resource-poor rural communities

Cerebral hemodynamic response to faces and emotions in infants at high risk for autism

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 109-144).The incidence of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has risen alarmingly in the United States, and is now thought to affect approximately 1 in 110 live births. Early diagnosis and intervention is the only treatment proven effective in cases of autism, however the behavioral tests currently available cannot make this diagnosis until at least two years of age. A lack of normal attention to faces and abnormal face processing is a cognitive deficit common to nearly all individuals with autism spectrum disorder, and this deficit is likely present from a very early age. The primary goal of this dissertation is therefore to characterize the specific neural response of face processing in infants with near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), and to then apply these measures to the study of abnormal face processing in infants at high risk for autism. In order to achieve these objectives, the work described herein aims to: 1) characterize the hemodynamic response to faces in normal infants at six months of age as measured by the Hitachi ETG-4000 functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) system; 2) Simultaneously measure orbitofrontal hemodynamic responses to social/emotional engagement and the response to faces in infants at high risk for autism as compared to low risk controls; and 3) Utilize a novel method of condition-related component selection and classification to identify waveforms associated with face and emotion processing in 6-7-month-old infants at high risk for ASD, and matched low-risk controls. Our results indicate similarities of response waveforms, but differences in both the spatial distribution, magnitude, and timing of oxy-hemoglobin and deoxy-hemoglobin responses between groups. Our findings represent the first identification of neuroimaging markers of a functional endophenotype at six months of age that may be associated with high risk of ASD. These results support a model of altered frontal lobe structure through evidence of altered hemodynamic response and/or functional activity in the high risk infant group, and these changes may, in turn, contribute to the development of ASD in specific individuals.by Sharon Elizabeth Fox.Ph.D